102 IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



that there it would stay, we might put up with temporary con- 

 fusion in vieAv of the peace that should certainly follow. But 

 the revisers are by no means agreed among themselves. We 

 are watching a wheel which is weighted, not on one side only, 

 but on two or three diiferent sides, and we not only have do 

 idea which side will eventually determine equilibrium, but we 

 are certain that any repose we may secure is liable to be 

 instantly and forever jeopardized by the first crank who 

 chooses to give our wheel again a whirl. Meanwhile revision 

 and re-naming go merrily on. Rules have been adopted by 

 bodies more or less representative, first on one tide of the 

 Atlantic then on the other, but neither do these rules agree 

 one with another. The zoologists " have their set of rules to 

 which some are obedient, others not. The botanists have 

 their set of rules which have gotten so far as to be liable to be 

 submitted to a world's botanical congress, did such ever con- 

 vene. Meantime, while nothing is settled, at least by any- 

 thing like universal consensus cf opinion, there are men who 

 devote their energies, not to the pursuit of science, but of 

 priority; who are Icrever claimirg to find in the work of some 

 obscure naturalist of a preceding century for common objects 

 names diiferent from those in universal use, and all the world 

 must perforce stop in its real pursuit cf knowledge to see what 

 must be done with these disturbers of the peace, until we are 

 in danger of presenting to our successors, if they heed us at 

 all, the spectacle of a generation of so-called scientific men 

 giving more heed to names than to things. 



Now all this is trite enough. Moreover the question of nomen- 

 clature is a real one, a very real one, as it has to do with an 

 instrument of research, and it is one cf those questions that 

 never can be settled until settled right. 



It is not in the hope of being able to contribute far towards 

 such settlement that the present paper is submitted, but rather 

 to point out some of the difficulties to be encountered by one 

 who attempts to deal with nomenclature, even in a group of 

 organisms confessedly small. 



As is well known the Myomjcetes are a group of sapro- 

 phytes, for a long time classed with the fungi and especially 

 with the Gastromycetes, puff-balls, stink- horns and the like, and 

 only recently, i. e., within twenty or thirty years, thoroughly 

 studied and understood. Although not understood, not prima- 

 rily properly referred at all, mycologists weie continually 



