Miscellaneous, 471 



Coupling this piece of legislation ■with the facts that Liunaeus 

 called the Swedish crayfish Cancer astacus and that this species was 

 included with others by Gronovius and Fabricius in the genus 

 Astacus, Mr. Pocock draws the conclusion that Astacus astacus 

 (Linn.) is the proper designation of the Swedish crayfish, and that 

 for the European crayfishes in general Astacus, and not Potamohius, 

 is the right generic name. 



In Februar}' last Professor Bell kindly directed my inexperienced 

 attention to certain Eules and Recommendations put forth under 

 the auspices of the British Association. On comparing these with 

 the proposed improvement of them above quoted, one is forcibly 

 reminded of Medea's advice to her cousins to restore their father's 

 j'outh by cutting him up and boiling the pieces in a pot with other 

 ingredients. The Stricklandian rule says, "A new specific name 

 must be given to a species when its old name has been adopted for 

 a genus which includes that species." The sensitive ears of Strick- 

 land's committee objected to such combinations as Pi/rrhocorax 

 pyrrhocorax . Later on a revising committee, with Sir W. Jardine 

 as reporter, agreed that when a specific name has been unhappily 

 adopted as generic, " it is the generic name which must be thrown 

 aside, not the old specific name," Both of these rules must be set 

 aside to justify the use of Astacus astacus. But another Strick- 

 landian rule says, " "When the evidence as to the original type of a 

 genus is not perfectly clear and indisputable, then the person who 

 first subdivides the genus may affix the original name to any portion 

 of it at his discretion, and no later author has a right to transfer 

 that name to any other part of the original genus." Now, my 

 contention is that the synonj-my in the ' Fauna Suecica ' of Lin- 

 naeus, 1746, clearly and indisputably shows that the common lobster 

 had a prescriptive right to be regarded as the type of the genus 

 Astacus. But if on technical grounds that evidence be disallowed, 

 then it was Leach who first subdivided the genus, and who, at his 

 discretion — surely his very sound discretion — afiSxed the original 

 name to that portion of it containing the common lobster. 



As to the general question whether such forms as " Astacus 

 astacus " are in any case permissible, an answer may be humbly 

 suggested. When they have been actually used as the first binary 

 combination of names applied to a species, in the interests of priority 

 it would be well to let them stand, unless they have some other 

 ■weakness besides the tautophonical. But a rule for introducing 

 them into parts of zoology where they have not previously been 

 Tified or perhaps even thought of will not, one may trust, obtain any 

 currency, even though proposed by so sound and sagacious a natu- 

 ralist as my friend Mr. li. I. Pocock. To take a single example, 

 the Parjurus aniculus of Fabricius was changed by Dana, in accord- 

 ance with the Stricklandian rule valid at the time (1852), into 

 Aniculus typicus, and this, on Mr. Pocock's principle, would, " ipso 

 facto," as he says, become Aniadus aniculus, to which any mode- 

 rately intelligent echo could only reply " ridiculous, ridiculous ! " 

 And if that and various other objectionable results of the new 

 principle were accepted, it still would not follow that " Astacus 



