22 CODE OF NOMENCLATURE. 



latter, they cancel it without hesitation, and introduce some new term which 

 appears to them more characteristic, but which is utterly unknown to the 

 science, and is therefore devoid of any authority. 1 If these persons were to 

 object to such names of men as Long, Little, Armstrong, Golightly, etc., in 

 cases where they fail to apply to the individuals who bear them, or should 

 complain of the names Cough, Lawrence, or Harvey, that they were devoid 

 of meaning, and should hence propose to change them for more characteris- 

 tic appellations, they would not act more unphilosophically or inconsider- 

 ately than they do in the case before us ; for, in truth, it matters not in the 

 least by what conventional sound we agree to designate an individual object, 

 provided the sign to be employed be stamped with such an authority as will 

 suffice to make it pass current." (B. A. Code, 1842.) 



These words, which in the original lead up to the consideration of the 

 Maw of priority,' seem equally sound and pertinent in connection with the 

 above principle of wider scope. 



B. Canons of Zoological Nomenclature. 



i. Of the Kinds of Names in Zoology. 



CANON I. Zoological nomenclature includes two kinds of 

 names : (i) Common names definitive of the relative rank of 

 groups in the scale of classification ; (2) Proper names appella- 

 tive of each group of organisms. 



REMARKS. E. g., Familia Falconidtz. Here the name Familia is 

 definitive of the relative rank of Falconidcz in the scale of classification ; and 

 Falconidce is appellative of that particular group of organisms, z. <?., of the 

 family. 



The vast majority of names in Zoology are of the second kind, or proper 

 names, and it is to the correct use of these that nearly all rules and regula- 

 tions of nomenclature solely apply. Common names are very few, being 

 merely those of the score or more of taxonomic groups, successively sub- 

 ordinated in a certain manner, into which zoologists have divided animal 

 organisms from ' kingdom ' to ' individual.' Proper names, on the other 

 hand, number several hundred thousand. 



The common names most firmly established among English-speaking zool- 

 ogists are the following : Regnum, Classis, Ordo, Familia, Genus, Species, 

 Varietas, in regular descent from the most general or comprehensive to the 



1 "Linnaeus says on this subject: ' Abstinenclum ab hac innovatione quae nun- 

 quam cessaret, quin indies aptiora detegerentur ad infinitum.' " 



