45G Miscellaneous . 



Owing to the confusion occasioned by modern nomenclature, it 

 has already become impossible to make an alphabetical catalogue of 

 Helminthes ; for where, for instance, are we to place Distomum 

 maculosum, which has been assigned to five different genera ? The 

 species is called Dlstomum maculosum, lludolphi, Fasciola maculosa, 

 Kudolphi, Dicroccelium maculosum, Olsson, Brachyleiynus maculosus, 

 Stossich, and Plaijiorchus maculosus, Braun ; among these genera 

 the reader may make his choice. 



The method of writing the names has also been influenced by the 

 modern passion for innovation. The rule has been laid down that 

 specific names are to be written with a small initial letter. Ascaris 

 linium means Linne's Ascaris ; the word is a genitive, and whoever 

 writes the name Linnceus in the nominative and linncei in the 

 genitive perpetrates an orthographical error ; are we, for example, 

 also to write Tcenia van benedeni instead of van Benedeni ? Three 

 mistakes are comprised in the specific name of Ascaris gadi-brandti, 

 for the nominatives are Gadus and Brandtus, and a hyphen is 

 unknown in Latin. There is no advantage in this new fashion, 

 since everyone knows that in zoological names the first is the 

 generic and the second the specific name. The disadvantages are 

 manifold : in the first place the modern way of writing is wrong ; 

 secondly, we are led to consider words with small initial letters as 

 adjectives, which is not the case ; and lastly, when a name has 

 been bestowed by an author, no one has the right to alter it 

 according to his own particular fancy. 



On enquiring as to the origin of these interfering changes, we are 

 told that it is a question of the principle of stability in nomen- 

 clature ; " our first consideration in nomenclature should be 

 stability," says Stiles. In the setting-up and observance of the 

 laws of stability of nomenclature, however, the names, which after 

 all were the end in view, have been entirely forgotten, for the 

 stability of the names has been utterly destroyed. We have now 

 introduced names which are scientifically impossible : in the place 

 of the old well-known names are found new and unknown ones ; 

 instead of new and legitimate ones we have old senseless names 

 that are mere words. The attempt is made to cancel the old idea 

 of a genus, and to place almost every new species in a genus of its 

 own ; the names are wrongly written, and this is called stability. 



Science also has its fashions, and we jubt go along with them ; 

 we do not want to be old-fashioned, but desire to stand on the 

 scientific summit ; we swim with the tide. 



Science, however, is free, and no one, not even a zoological 

 congress, has the right to give it precepts which injure it. That the 

 course which has been adopted by the prevailing helminthological 

 nomenclature is a serious disadvantage to science I have no doubt 

 whatever. — Zoolor/ischer Anzeiger, Bd. xxvi. no. 692 (January 26, 

 1903), pp. 223-229 : from a separate impression supplied by the 

 Author. 



