Article XVI. NOMENCLATORIAL NOTES ON AMER- 

 ICAN MAMMALS. 



By J. A. ALLEN. 

 I. THE GENERIC NAMES Alee AND Alces. 



Alee and Alces are variants of the same word, as used by 

 various authors, for the group of Deer of which Cervus alces 

 Linn, is the type, and also in a specific sense for Linnaeus 's 

 Cervus alces. Both forms of the word have been used in- 

 differently, or according to preference, in some cases both 

 forms by the same author, for the same animal, from Pliny 

 down to the systematists of the seventeenth and eighteenth 

 centuries. 



The form Alee was first introduced into technical nomen- 

 clature in a generic sense by Blumenbach in 1803 (Manuel 

 d'Histoire Naturelle, II, p. 407) for the extinct Irish Elk, 

 which he named Alee gigantea, this being its first technical 

 name. Alee thus antedates Megaceros Owen (1844). 



In 1827 Hamilton Smith (Griffith's An. King., V, p. 303) 

 used the same form of the word in a subgeneric sense for the 

 Cervus alces group; and Alee has since been used in the same 

 way by various later writers, as Wagner, 1844, 1855, Baird, 

 1857, Allen, 1869, Gilpin, 1871, Merriam, 1884, Miller, 1897, 

 etc. 



The form Alces appears to have been first used for the 

 same group by Jardine in 1835 (Nat. Libr., Mamm., Ill, 1835, 

 p. 125) and again by Ogilby in 1836 (P. Z. S., 1836, p. 135), 

 and by numerous subsequent writers. It has, however, been 

 often incorrectly attributed to Hamilton Smith (1827) in- 

 stead of to Jardine (1835) (cf. Blasius, Saug. Deutschl., 1857, 

 p. 434; Trouessart, Cat. Mamm., 1897, p. 886; Elliot, Synop. 

 N. Am. Mamm., 1901, p. 37). The two forms having been 

 treated as the same word, Alces has been given preference 

 apparently on the supposed ground of correctness, since it 

 was the form used by Linnaeus for the species. 



In short, from time immemorial, as well as in modern 



