076 On the Generic Name of the Finless-haGked Porpoise. 



view, however, of the considerable variations in colour in this 

 genus, and the alteration of characters due to af;e, 1 am not 

 at present prepared to admit more than a singlo species as 

 occurring in the Saruwaged Mountains. One of tlie adults, 

 No. 4, has its fur profusely mixed with greyish white 

 anteriorly, while No. 12 has no grey at all, and the general 

 colour is far more rufous. Much more material is needed 

 before any sound opinion on the number of species can be 

 arrived at. 



LXXXIII. — The Generic Name of the Finlesa-hacked 

 Porpoise, formerly known as Neomeris phocajnoides. By 

 Oldfielu Thomas. 



(Published by permission of the Trustees of the British Museum.) 



The question of the proper treatment of misprints in generic 

 names is one that bristles with difficulties, and needs most 

 careful consideration in every case. Sometimes, when the 

 misprinted name has been used in a perfectly valid form, it 

 would seem that we ought to recognize it as having full 

 status, in spite of its being obviously or presumably a mis- 

 print. This was the course I followed in renaming the 

 Dryomys of 1906, because of the accidental use of that name 

 (as a misprint iov Drymomys) by Pliilippi six years before, and 

 it has received the approval of later writers. When, however, 

 the misprint is not, viewed simply by itself, strictly valid, for 

 want of diagnosis or identifiable type-species, the name should 

 be considered as having no status at all. Tiiis would, for 

 instance, apply to Wallace's Neotomys of 1876, which ante- 

 dates, but does not invalidate, my Neotomys of 1894. 



Now, this question of misprints arises in the case of the 

 Porpoise to which Gray applied the generic name o( Neomeris, 

 for that word proved to be invalid owing to its having been 

 used earlier for an invertebrate, and in dealing with it Palmer, 

 when prei)aring his great work on nomenclature, replaced it 

 by Neophor(ena, after quoting two other names which he set 

 aside as misprints. His notice of Neomeris, abbreviated, is as 

 follows (exact references are given in his 'Index Generum 

 Mammalium/ p. 453, 1904) :— 



Neomeris, Gray, 1846, nee Laraouroux, 1816. 

 Meomeris, Gray, 1847. 

 Nomeris, Coues, 1890, and, finally, 

 Neo]>hoc(ena, Palmer, 1899. 



