30 CODE OF NOMENCLATURE. 



moreover, so well understood, that what might be further said here may 

 be best brought into the discussion, beyond, of the starting-point of nomen- 

 clature and of the law of priority. 



3. Of the Trinomial System as a Phase of Zoological 

 Nom enclatu re. 



CANON XI. Trinomial nomenclature consists in applying to 

 every individual organism, and to the aggregate of such organ- 

 isms known now to intergrade in physical characters, three 

 names, one of which expresses the subspecific distinctness of 

 the organism from all other organisms, and the other two 

 of which express respectively its specific indistinctness from, 

 or generic identity with, certain other organisms ; the first of 

 these names being the subspecific, the second the specific, 

 and the third the generic designation ; the three, written con- 

 secutively, without the intervention of any other word, term, 

 or sign, constituting the technical name of any subspecifically 

 distinct organism. 



REMARKS. This Canon, the Committee knows, directly contravenes the 

 letter of the B. A. Code, and also, it believes, all previous codes of nomen- 

 clatural rules; but it feels prepared to maintain that it is not antagonistic 

 to the B. A. or any other code, being conceived strictly in the whole spirit 

 and tenor of the binomial system, though contrary to its letter. It evidently 

 amplifies, increases the effective force of, and lends a new precision to, the 

 old system. It is also plainly but a step in the direction of brevity, con- 

 venience, and explicitness, from the common but awkward practice of sepa- 

 rating the third term, in the names of subspecies or varieties, from the second 

 or specific term by the interpolation of * var.,' which in several codes is for- 

 mally provided for by special rules. The practice of indicating subspecies, 

 as distinguished from species, by trinomials, has already come into nearly 

 universal use with American ornithologists and mammalogists, and is em- 

 ployed to some extent by other American zoologists. The system appears 

 also to have found much favor among British and other foreign ornitholo- 

 gists of high standing, some of whom have already employed it in their pub- 

 lications. It seems likely to supply a present want, and subserve, at least 

 for a time, a very useful purpose. 



Your Committee's reasons for adopting the system for the class of cases to 

 which it is adapted have already been formally enunciated in this Report 

 (p. 1 6), in an extract from the minutes of its meetings. 



