Vol. xxiii] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS 225 
Mr. Caudell implies that it is the desire to retain a long-used, but not 
prior, name in his own specialty by a taxonomist that impels the latter 
to vote against strict priority in all cases. We urge that it is not the 
desires of the taxonomic specialists that should be given the chief 
weight. Every specialist can keep in touch, at least to a great extent, 
with the nomenclatural changes in his own group. Those who can not 
and ought not, be compelled to submit to these changes are those who, 
whether taxonomists or not, are not specialists in the nomenclature of 
all the subdivisions of the animal kingdom but who, as morphologists, 
physiologists or laborers in other fields, make constant comparisons be- 
tween members of different groups of animals. Too much has already 
been done in these non-taxonomic fields to bury the results under un- 
familiar names simply because they are of prior date. 
Mr. Caudell also implies that priority, because based on codified 
laws and rules, is certain of more unanimous consent than any proposal 
to retain certain long-established and much-used, but not prior, names. 
This we deny. The attitudes of recent authors in the Diptera, in the 
Lepidoptera, in the Odonata (to quote no others), show that many 
students have not accepted the prior names and therefore not accepted 
the principle of priority. Both the priority principle and the principle of 
nomina conservanda appeal to the common sense and unanimous consent 
of naturalists and the former has no more certain footing than the latter. 
Finally Mr. Caudell implies that the discussion on the nomina con- 
_ servanda question in the recent Washington meeting of the Entomo- 
logical Society of America was sufficient. This, too, we must deny. The 
discussion came before the program of papers was finished. To have 
prolonged it would have deprived more contributors of the opportunity 
to read their papers than was actually the case. Even as it was, several 
withdrew on account of the lack of time. We have already expressed 
our views on this feature of the Society’s meetings.* Because the dis- 
cussion on the nomina conservanda question there was not sufficient, and 
because of the approaching Congress of Entomology at Oxford, we have 
opened the pages of the News to its further consideration. 
In this number of the News we publish a list of Generic Names in 
Diptera for inclusion in the Official List of Generic Names of the Inter- 
national Zoological Commission. If these lists, after adoption by the 
- Commission, could be made definitive by that body, so that none of the 
included names should be disturbed by the results of any future anti- 
quarian research, a long step would be made toward stability and con- 
servation in nomenclature. 
We invite further votes on the alternative questions proposed in our 
March editorial. 
* Ent. News, November, 1911, p. 418; February, 1912, p. 79. 
