14 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. JJ 



that modern zoological nomenclature is binominal, one word for the 

 generic designation and one word for the specific designation. Binaire 

 in the French version being superfluous and binlir in the German ver- 

 sion being equivocal, the changes were made accordingly. Both, I sus- 

 pect, agreed in this in a desire to prevent the official recognition of 

 the trinominal as a category of equal nomenclatorial rank. 



But it is certain that Blanchard by retaining the word binaire in 

 Article 33 also retained the meaning it had in the former French 

 editions. It is almost equally certain that Carus meant to retain the 

 meaning of binlir in the German code, viz., as synonymous with 

 binominal. 



It may not be out of place here to mention the effort of the British 

 entomologists headed by Lord Walsingham and Sir George Hampson 

 to place before the Zoological Congress at Cambridge some of their 

 wishes with regard to a strict application of the law of priority in 

 entomological work and related questions. They presented to the 

 Congress a memorandum on the " Nomenclature of Lepidoptera " 

 (68 pp.). The significant point is that they were unanimously in favor 

 of 1758 as the starting point and they also unanimously agreed that 

 the adoption of this date would make it unnecessary to make any 

 exceptions in favor of earlier authors, such as had been made in the 

 Stricklandian revised Code of 1865. It was thus made clear that even 

 British zoologists were willing to accept 1758, if thereby they could 

 retain all genera proposed after that date. 



At the next (4th) International Zoological Congress at Cambridge, 

 England, 1898, no steps could be taken to smooth away the many 

 differences which had arisen. It was then decided to increase the 

 membership of the Commission on Nomenclature to 15. This com- 

 mission was instructed to centralize, discuss and elaborate all the 

 questions relative to the zoological nomenclature and to present to 

 the Congress in 1901 a final report on the question. The above men- 

 tioned memorandum of the British entomologists was also referred to 

 the commission. 



The reinforced commission met at the 5th Zoological Congress in 

 Berlin, 1901. The members were perfectly clear on the point that 

 they were expected to agree unequivocally on one definite proposition 

 and that therefore the representatives of the three competing codes 

 would have to yield on some of their pet contentions in order to 

 obtain perfect agreement. It was realized that disagreement would 

 spell calamity, and nobody wanted to take the responsibility of caus- 

 ing a schism. Nevertheless, a break was threatened several times, 

 and concessions were made only after protracted discussion. The 



