12 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL, ']J 



wenn seiche zufallig den Gesetzen der binaren Nomenclatur entspre- 

 chen. Daher sind z. B. Brisson's Gattungsnamen anzunehmen, seine 

 Artnamen aber sammtlich zu verwerf en." 



The only dissenting voice was that of Prof. Alfred Newton, of 

 Cambridge, England, who in a vitriolic letter denounced the A. O. U. 

 Code and upheld the Stricklandian Code as modified in 1865 by the 

 committee of which he himself had been a member. 



It is now worth repeating that in 1891 the A. O. U. Code ; the Code 

 of the Zoological Society of France; the International Zoological 

 Code; and the International Ornithological Code (on German initia- 

 tive), all had agreed to start from 1758 and to admit the genus de- 

 nominations but not the species denominations of all subsequent 

 authors even though they were not binominalists. Furthermore, while 

 the British zoologists still adhered to 1766, they nevertheless made a 

 special exception for generic names proposed by certain authors 

 (Brisson, Artedi, Scopoli) before that date. 



The German Zoological Society, founded in 1890, at its first annual 

 meeting, Leipzig, 1891, entered the field of zoological nomenclature 

 by electing a commission, consisting of Carus, Doderlein and Mobius, 

 with the object of preparing a proposition for the " einheitliche Re- 

 gelung der systematischen Nomenclatur." A preliminary discussion 

 of the first draft took place at the second annual meeting in Berlin 

 (1892). — Finally, at the third annual meeting in Gottingen, the final 

 report, " Regeln fitr die wissenschaftliche Benennung der Thiere," 

 edited by BiitschH, Carus, Doderlein, Ehlers, Ludwig, Mobius, 

 Schulze, and Spengel, was adopted (Verb. Deutsch. Zool. Ges., Dritt. 

 Jahresvers., Gottingen, 24 bis 26 Mai, 1893, pp. 89-98). 



While this German code in many respects agrees with the Ameri- 

 can, French and International codes, it is diametrically opposed to 

 them in that particular matter which we are discussing here. Article 7 

 is as follows : " Die Anwendung des Prioritatsgesetzes beginnt mit 

 der zehnten Ausgabe von Linne's ' Systema Naturae' (1758). 

 (a) Unzulassig sind Art-und Gattungsnamen aus solchen Druck- 

 schriften, in welchen die binare Nomenclatur nicht principiell zur 

 Anwendung kommt." As the previous German codes employ binar 

 for binominal or binomial, the meaning of article 7 is unmistakable. 

 According to it the generic names of Brisson, Gronovius, etc., even 

 if published after 1758, are not available on the authority of their 

 first proposers. Thus a new element of discord had entered the arena. 



The third International Zoological Congress at Leiden, 1895, there- 

 fore elected a commission to study the question, consisting of 

 Blanchard, Carus, Jentink, Sclater and Stiles, who met at Baden- 



