1 60 Bulletin American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XV I, 



nomenclature, Alee and Alces have been treated as the same 

 word, referring (except in the case of Blumenbach) always to 

 the same thing. Mr. Lydekker, in view of these facts, has 

 taken Cervalces Scott (1885) as the first available name for 

 the Alcine group of deer. It is clear, however, as shown by 

 Scott (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1885, pp. 181-202, figs. 

 1-7 and pi. ii), that Cervalces is genetically distinct from 

 Alces, and there being no other name available, I propose 

 Paralces for the latter group, with Cervus alces Linn, as the 

 type. The present known forms are: 



1. Paralces alces (Linn.). 



2. Paralces ainericanus (Clinton). 1 



3. Paralces gigas (Miller). 



This case has an interesting bearing upon the question as 

 to whether or not words etymologically the same but differing 

 by a single letter are both available in nomenclature. As the 

 affirmative side of this question is supported, with or without 

 some reservation, by a number of prominent zoologists, it is 

 interesting to see how the principle would work in a case like 

 Alee and Alces. There are four well defined groups of deer 

 characterized by having palmated antlers, but which differ 

 so much in other structural features as to fairly entitle them 

 to generic (certainly to subgeneric) rank. Two of these 

 Alee Blumenbach and Cervalces Scott are extinct ; the other 

 two Alces Ham. Smith and Dama Ham. Smith relate re- 

 spectively to the so-called Moose and Fallow Deer groups. 

 All are closely related types of a single subfamily. As Alee 

 and Alces have been used interchangeably by the majority of 

 writers for more than half a century, can they now be used as 

 designations for closely allied genera without involving un- 

 certainty? As this is not an isolated case, but the type of a 

 numerous class, it seems to me that the adoption of the prin- 

 ciple that the difference of a single letter in the spelling of 

 names' etymologically the same renders several forms of the 

 same word tenable in nomenclature would often prove incon- 

 venient and confusing. In the present case we would have, 



1 Concerning the authority for the name americanus see Osgood, Proc. Biol. Soc.Wash., 

 XV, 87, April 25, 1902. 



