NO. I HISTORY OF ZOOLOGICAL NOMENCLATURE — STEJNEGER 7 



of zoological nomenclature. The code furthermore provides (canon 

 12) that "the law of priority begins to be operative at the beginning 

 of zoological nomenclature" and (canon 13) "zoological nomencla- 

 ture begins at 1758, the date of the loth edition of the ' Systema 

 Naturae ' of Linnaeus." Note well : zoological nomenclature, not 

 binomial nomenclature, nor Linnaean nomenclature! Note also the 

 following reasons given by the committee for dissenting from pre- 

 vious codes in rejecting 1766 as a starting point (p. 36) : " This date 

 [1758] admits to recognition the works of Artedi, Scopoli, Clerck, 

 Pallas, Briinnich, Brisson, in favor of the first-named two of whom, 

 and of the last-named one, the B[ritish] A[ssociation] Committee 

 have had to make special exceptions." In a footnote the Article 2 of 

 the original B. A. Code (1842) is quoted, which admitted the genera 

 of Brisson: " But Brisson still adhered to the old mode of designat- 

 ing species by a sentence instead of a word, and therefore while we 

 retain his defined genera we do not extend the same indulgence to 

 the titles of his species, even when the latter are accidentally binomial 

 in form." The argument winds up as follows (p. 38) : " It seems 

 best that the origin of generic names in zoology should date (as said 

 above) only from 1758 [and not from Tournefort 1700 or Linnaeus 

 1735] ; that names adopted from earlier authors by Linnaeus date 

 only from their adoption by Linnaeus ; and that in other cases pre- 

 Linnaean names shall date from their introduction by subsequent 

 authors after 1758." It is thus plain that the A. O. U. Code admits 

 all truly generic names proposed after 1758 whether the author is 

 a binominalist or not. The generic names of Gronovius, 1763, are 

 consequently admissible under that code. It may be further noted 

 that in Dall's codification of 1877 and the A. O. U. Code of 1885, 

 only the word hinoviial is used and nowhere the word binary. 



In the meantime the zoologists on the continent of Europe had also 

 begun to agitate the question of more modern rules of nomenclature. 

 Again it was an ornithologist who first stirred up the question. In 

 1872 Carl J. Sundevall, the eminent Swedish zoologist, published a 

 book on the natural system of the birds, and in the introduction which 

 was written both in Swedish and French he has a chapter entitled 

 " Remarques sur les noms systematiques " (Methodi Naturalis Avium 

 Disponendarum Tentamen, Stockholm, 1872, pp. lix-lxix). As far 

 as species names are concerned, he was an early and consistent de- 

 fender of 1758 as a starting point. He wrote (p. Ixii) : " C'est de 

 ces dates [1758 in zoology and 175 1 in botany] que commencent les 

 noms speciaux ; mais les noms generiques sont plus anciens. Dans la 

 botanique, ils furent introduits comme principe general par Tourne- 



