DETERMINATION OF GENERIC TYPES, ETC. 13 



THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION (STRICKLANDIAN) CODE. 



It would appear that the Stricklandian Code was perhaps the first 

 publication in which the subject of t} 7 pes was discussed and formu- 

 lated in a rather definite manner; hence, from the historical view point 

 the passages in question are important. 



The British Association Code expressed the law of priority as 

 follows: 



Law of priority the only effectual and just one. It being admitted on all hands that 

 words are only the conventional signs of ideas, it, is evident that language can only 

 attain its end effectually by being permanently established and generally recognized. 

 This consideration ought, it would seem, to have checked those who are continually 

 attempting to subvert the established language of zoology by substituting terms of 

 their own coinage. But, forgetting the true nature of language, they persist in con- 

 founding the name, of a species or group with its definition; and because the former 

 often falls short of the fullness of expression found in the latter, they cancel it with- 

 out hesitation and introduce some new term which appears to them more character- 

 istic, but which is utterly unknown to the science and is therefore devoid of all 

 authority. 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 Harrey, that they 

 were devoid of meaning, and should hence propose to change them for more charac- 

 teristic appellations, they would not act more unphilosophically or inconsiderately 

 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 cur- 

 rent. Now, in zoology no one person can subsequently claim an authority equal to 

 that possessed by the person who is the first to define a new genus or describe a new 

 species, and hence it is that the name originally given, even though it may be infe- 

 rior in point of elegance or expressiveness to those subsequently proposed, ought as a 

 general principle to be permanently retained. To this consideration we ought to add 

 the injustice of erasing the name originally selected by the person to whose labors 

 we owe our first knowledge of the object; and we should reflect how much the per- 

 mission of such a practice opens a door to obscure pretenders for dragging themselves 

 into notice at the expense of original observers. Neither can an author be permitted 

 to alter a name which he himself has once published, except in accordance with 

 fixed and equitable laws. It is well observed by Decandolle, " L'auteur meme qui a 

 le premier etabli un nom n'a pas plus qu'un autre le droit de le changer pour simple 

 cause d' impropriete. La priorite en effet est un terme fixe, positif, qui n'admetrien, 

 ni d'arbitraire ni de partial." 



For these reasons we have no hesitation in adopting as our fundamental maxim 

 the "law of priority," viz: 



1. The name originally given by the founder of a group or the describer of a 

 species should be permanently retained to the exclusion of all subsequent synonyms 

 (with the exceptions about to be noticed). 

 * * * * 



Generic names to be retained for the typical portion of the old genus. When a genus is 

 subdivided into other genera, the original name should be retained for that portion 

 of it which exhibits in the greatest degree its essential characters as at first defined. 

 Authors frequently indicate this by selecting some one species as a fixed point of 

 reference which they term the "type of the genus." When they omit doing so, it 

 may still in many cases be correctly inferred that the first species mentioned on their 



