226 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [ May, ’12 
Notes and News 
ENTOMOLOGICAL GLEANINGS FROM ALL QUARTERS 
OF THE GLOBE. 
Strict Priorrry 1n NoMENCLATURE—OR NoT?—With regard to the 
nomina conservanda, I should at present only be willing to vote to 
keep the matter open. I think something will have to be done to 
preserve us from disastrous nomenclatural changes, but it should be 
done with care and deliberation and particularly with the knowledge 
and consent of zoologists generally. I object very much to a recent 
ruling of the committee on genera without species (last part of opinion 
46, also last half of summary), and venture to think that it is contrary 
to the spirit of the International Rules and to common sense. It is 
this sort of thing which increases our difficulties, and will eventually 
convert people to the plan of purely arbitrary selections of nomina con- 
servanda. 
At the present time I think it is important to get every zoologist 
to think seriously about these matters, and as many as possible to 
ascertain precisely what will be the effect of particular rules or rulings 
on their own special groups. I do not see how, under any circum- 
stances, we could allow two generic names, spelled alike in zoology; 
but I think a difference of one letter should suffice to prevent ho- 
nonymy.—TuHro. D. A. CocKERELL. 
While signing the protest against the strict application of the law 
of priority, I do so with the provision that any general concur- 
rence in such an opinion should not be accepted as a license for 
every zoologist to adopt any names that he chooses. I believe that 
the rules of nomenclature involving the law of priority should be 
operative in the future in all cases, and in the past in the majority 
of cases. I believe that no individual should be sanctioned in taking 
it upon himself to waive them, but that in specific cases where clearly 
greater convenience wil result from setting them aside, that this 
should be done by a centrally organized and authorized body, pre- 
sumably the Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. I thoroughly 
believe that such a body should work toward the compilation of a list 
of nomina conservanda, and that the names of such a list, once adopt- 
ed, should never be open to future change on nomenclatorial grounds. 
As far as working justice to the older authors, our present laws 
are at best ex post facto, and are not more likely to effect a real jus- 
tice than would a list of nomina conservanda. But the latter would 
accomplish a greater debt of justice to future generations, to whom it 
is more due. It is they, and not the past, who must suffer from our 
shortcomings. I believe in rules, I believe in laws, but I emphatically 
believe in their limitations, and to bind ourselves by rules for the 
