INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE, PHILADELPHIA. 563 



such names as Kcllia and Rissoa, which, by the rule, should be Kellyia and 

 Rissoia, may justly be held to have established themselves by prescriptive 

 right and to be in no need of emendation. The more basic principle, that of 

 fixity of the name, should rule here. But when a proper name has been mutil- 

 ated, ungrammatically misused, or is contested on account of error from the 

 time, of its proposal, as in the cases of Drcisscua, Valencicnncnsis and Totteni- 

 aua, we hold that emendation is proper, and write Drcissensia, Valencienncsia 

 and Totlenia. 



The requirement of Latin form does not necessarily extend to details of 

 internal construction, and a Greek word put according to rule into Latin form, 

 becomes, for the purpose of nomenclature, a Latin word, and, we hold, may 

 (though not without opprobrium) be compounded with another intrinsically 

 Latin word, without necessarily rendering the compound rejectable. Fixity 

 of names is far more important than purity of construction and the nomencla- 

 ture should not be subject to the whims of philologers, however unpleasant 

 the barbarisms may be, unless the external form of the word is absolutely in 

 conflict with the Latin usage. The writer heartily agrees with Adanson that 

 names having no meaning are the best (when Latiniform) if the alterna- 

 tive be the constant changing of them to suit the classicists. Elisions for brev- 

 ity or euphony, even if not authorized by the rules of Latin construction, 

 should not cause a name to be rejected, Solccnrtits should not be elongated into 

 Si'lcnociirtns, nor should the indices be thrown into confusion by the materializ- 

 ing of an omitted aspirate in a Greek transliteration, making, for instance, Hor- 

 iostoma out of an innocent Oriostoina. The Greeks themselves were by no 

 means of one mind about the aspirate. 



There was a time when nomenclature was a comparatively small affair 

 and the inconvenience caused by striving after an elegant Latinity was small. 

 But, with the tens of thousands of names which have been proposed, changes 

 have now a very different importance to the worker, and should no longer be 

 required on trivial or anything but really necessary grounds. 



The third clause of Rule III, requires a sufficient definition or identifica- 

 tion of a name. When an author proposes a genus and gives no definition or 

 reference to the literature other than the name of a species as, for instance, 

 " Spizclla monticola Linne," it would seem to be very clear sailing. But every 

 one who has had to hunt up details of nomenclature has found cases where it 

 was quite clear that the species supposed to be, say " monticola Linne," was 

 really something quite different, and the genus maker was building on an ig- 

 norance of the true monticola. That such wretched work should not be al- 

 lowed to confuse the nomenclature, it has been, as the writer thinks very just- 

 ly, required that some attempt at a differentiation of a genus should be required 

 of its author before his name should be held to have acquired a scientific basis. 



By the enforcement of such a rule some of the worst nuisances in the lit- 



