52 Mr. F. O. P. Cambridge—d Revision 
but his courage seems occasionally to have failed him, 
for he has not always applied those principles consistently 
throughout. Curiously enough, too, he ignores his own 
selections of types made in many cases in ‘ Les Arachnides 
de France.’ 
On page 799 of his Hist. Nat. Ar. ii. 1895, he admits 
that Latreille limited the genus Araneus (Aranea) to three 
species, and also his right to do so by quoting Article 35 of 
the International Congress of Zoology in 1889 (Paris) and 
1892 (Moscow) to that effect ; but he promptly selects as the 
type of Araneus a species which was not included in this 
limitation, namely anyulatus, Clerck. So, too, in the case 
of the genus Lycosa, he takes as the type a species, turentula, 
Rossi, which was not originally included in the genus under 
this or any other name. 
Simon, moreover, very rarely gives reasons for his selec- 
tions of types; so that one is forced either to accept his 
decisions as it were ex cathedra or to ignore them altogether. 
But the days of the authority whose ipse dixit is final and 
above question or criticism have passed away ; and since the 
work cannot be altogether ignored, the whole of the ground 
must be reinvestigated to prove whether his selections are 
sound or otherwise. 
These criticisms are offered in no way with a view of 
underrating the splendid efforts of both horell and Simon 
to introduce something like order into the chaos of nomen- 
clature, but simply as a justification for this work of 
revision. 
It must be made quite clear that, as with a group of 
species, so with the name attached to that group and pub- 
lished, no one, not even the original author himself, has a 
right to make any alteration in it. It cannot matter, for 
scientific purposes, whether a name be spelt, for instance, 
Micromata ov Micrommata, any more than it matters to 
students in the future whether the spider usually known as 
Anyphena accentuata be known as Micromata accentuata, 
as it must be, since it happens to be the type of the genus 
Micromata. 
If an arbitrary method be followed, and every method 
must be arbitrary at some point, at least let it be applied 
consistently. Any other attempts, involving philosophical 
considerations as to what this or that author would have 
preferred, simply open up further possibilities of confusion, 
no two men agreeing as to how far this sympathy should be 
extended, leading on to endless disputation over minor 
details. Whereas if it be agreed to show no sympathy at 
