i. xvn 



i8 99 J 



Allen, " Truth versus Error- 



49 



necessarily correct orthography. After this experience, the work 

 of strengthening the lame and halting words is hardly likely to 

 be continued in other fields of science." 



Perhaps it would not be unfair to history to say that the 

 maxim, " A name is only a name, and has no necessary meaning,' 

 when adopted in 1S85 received the unanimous approval of the 

 Committee. But with the lapse of time, alas ! 



Mr. Oldfield Thomas, curator of mammals in the British Muse- 

 um, not only discountenances the emendation of names, but in 

 a recent paper 'On the Genera of Rodents' (Proc. Zool. Soc, 

 1896, p. 1015, footnote) makes the following pertinent comment 

 on a question which has greatly agitated Mr. Elliot, namely, the 

 insertion or omission of the Greek aspirate. Apropos of that 

 much emended name Aplodontia, he says : " With regard to the 

 insertion of the aspirate into the spelling of this and similar 

 words, inquiry among pure classicists (other than zoologists) 

 elicits the opinion that the Latins were so careless and irregular 

 themselves in this respect, that it is impossible to make a hard- 

 and-fast rule about it, and that we should therefore accept the 

 original aspiration or non-aspiration of scientific names. Person- 

 ally I look with loathing on these //-less names, but I feel 

 bound to recognize that it is not right to alter words formed 

 by authors who Latinized their Greek in the very way that the 

 Latins themselves sometimes did." 



Mr. F. A. Lucas, in commenting in ' Science ' (Nov. 4, 1898, 

 p. 626) on Mr. Elliot's paper in the October Auk, makes the 

 following timely remarks : " Zoological names are not literature, 

 but simply handles by which species may be grasped, and they 

 serve their purpose equally well if rough hewn or grammatically 

 polished. LeConte used Gyascntus as a generic name simply 

 to illustrate the point that a name need not of necessity have any 

 meaning, and Dr. Leidy coined names with the express statement 

 that they were not etymologically correct, but used because they 

 were shorter than if correctly formed." This, it may be added, has 

 often been the case with many scholarly naturalists, as stated in 

 my reply to Mr. Elliot in the Oct. Auk. 



Mr. Thomas R. R. Stebbins, M. A., F. R. S., etc., a leading 

 English authority in Carcinology, in the ' Zoologist ' for Oct., 1898, 



