96 NOMENCLATURE. 



accompanied by proper definition ; the science therefore demands the rule shall be 

 co-extensive with its necessities, and good authors refuse to recognize names unless 

 the publication is such that their meaning may be readily comprehended. 



A communication in a public assembly or learned society, or the reading of a 

 paper containing new names at such meeting, printing of the names in a catalogue, 

 labeling the fossils in a collection, printing the names and description in a news- 

 paper, either one or all these attempts to introduce the names, does not constitute a 

 publication within the rule, and hence give the names no place in science. Nor 

 does the printing of the names with brief definitions in an obscure pamphlet, or 

 even in the Journal of a learned society, where the definition will not enable an or- 

 dinary palaeontologist to identify or distinguish the species at another locality than 

 the typical one, give them any right to claim recognition. Occasional pamphlets 

 independently issued, and insufficiently advertised and distributed, or very small 

 editions that can not reach the students of the science generally, are not publica- 

 tions within the rule. 



The date borne by a publication will be presumed to be accurate, though this 

 presumption is only prima facie, and may always be contested, and the true date 

 shown, from which time alone do names have any validity. 



A species is not to be considered as named unless both generic and specific 

 names are simultaneously applied to it. 



Where a genus or species is announced in a publication, and subsequently de- 

 scribed in another publication, the latter only is entitled to recognition. It is es- 

 sential in establishing a genus that some species be referred to it. 



NAMES TO BE REJECTED, CHANGED, OR MODIFIED. 



A generic name should be rejected when it has been previously applied to an- 

 other valid genus of organisms, even if it has received general currency. It should 

 also be rejected when it expresses a positively false character in the genus, and is, 

 therefore liable to propagate error, and especially is this the case where the defini- 

 tion is so erroneous as not to entitle it to recognition ; but where the name has re- 

 ceived general circulation, and the error is not such as to seriously mislead, the 

 name is retained ; as, Athyris and Atrypa. So a specific name should be rejected 

 when it is already applied to another species or subdivision in the same genus, or 

 when a geographical name of a country entirely removed from the habitat of the 

 species is used. 



A name should be rejected when it is formed of two words belonging to dif- 

 ferent languages, as en put before a Latiu name, sub before a Greek name, oides, 

 opsis suffixed to a Latin name; or when it is identical if properly spelled, accord- 

 ing to its true derivation, with a prior valid name, as Platystoma of Conrad, being 

 preoccupied, can not be retained simply because he misspelled it Platyostoma. 



A name should always be rejected when it outrages decency. 



It is inelegant and tautological to derive a generic name from the specific name 

 of its typical species. For example, Corvus pyrrhocorax, Linn., was afterward ad- 

 vanced to a genus under the name of Pyrrhocorax. The name therefore became 

 Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax. The rule is now to reject all such generic names, except 

 those which, from long usage, have imbedded themselves into science; none of which, 

 however, can claim a place in palaeontology. 



