Miscellaneous. 519 
characteristic. Specific names derived from persons, used with 
discretion, and as far as possible restricted to those who have had to 
do with the species, as discoverer, describer, &c., are surely unobjec- 
tionable. Generic names derived from persons are, we agree, best 
restricted to botany, where, when appropriately applied, they are in 
good taste, if not too cacophonous. As to closely resembling names, 
in large genera it may sometimes be best to “call a species virens or 
virescens’ when there is already a viridis. Anagrams, like puns, if 
not cautiously handled and particularly well made, are intolerable. 
But what can be prettier, among unmeaning names, than R. Brown’s 
Tellima? Botanists will hardly agree that a good generic name which 
has been effectually superseded by the law of priority should never 
afterwards be bestowed upon some other genus of some other order. 
‘It has sometimes been the practice, in subdividing an old genus, to 
give to the lesser genera so formed the names of their respective 
typical species.” The Committee objects to this usage because the 
promotion calls for new specific names. To us it seems a natural 
and proper course when the name of the species in question is 
Substantive and otherwise fitting,—most proper when (to take a not 
uncommon case) one used generically in the first place by ante- 
Linnzan naturalists or herbalists. 
But the objection of the Committee is probably connected with a 
peculiar view which they have adopted as to the way of citing species 
which have been transferred to some other than the original genus. 
Here many zoologists, and a few botanists, have been giving them- - 
selves much trouble and perplexity, as it seems to us, to little purpose. 
Take for illustration our Blue Cohosh, originally Leontice thalictroides 
of Linnzeus, but afterwards, in Michaux’s Flora, taken as the type of 
a new genus, and therefore appearing as Caulophyllum thalictroides. 
Now if we adopt the view of Linnzus, to which he would probably 
have adhered had he lived till now, we write the name and the 
authority thus :— 
Leontice thalictroides, Linn. 
(Syn. Caulophyllum thalictroides, Michx.) 
The abbreviated names of the authors appended stand in place of the 
reference, e. gr. Linn. Sp. Pl. 1, p. 448, and Michx. Fl. Bor.-Am. 
1, p. 205, tab. 21. If the other view be adopted, it stands, in fact, 
Caulophyllum thalictroides, Michx. 
(Syn. Leontice thalictroides, Linn.) 
But, fearful lest the original describer should be robbed of his due 
credit, it has been proposed to write, 
Caulophyllum thalictroides, Linn. 
This is not only an anachronism of half a century, but an imposi- 
tion upon Linneeus of a view which he had not and perhaps would 
not have adopted. To avoid such fatal objections, it has been pro- 
posed to write Caulophyllum (Michx.) thalictroides, Linn., which is 
not only “too lengthy and inconvenient to be used with ease and 
rapidity,” but too cumbrous and uncouth to be used at all. And 
finally, the Committee propose to write, 
Caulophyllum thalictroides (Linn.) (sp.), 
