12 



CODE OF NOMENCLATURE. 



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tifiable by the means furnished by the original describer, or at 

 least by such means taicen in connection with sources of infor- 

 mation contemporaneous with the original description. That is 

 to say, the name of a species or other group, to be valid, must 

 have been identifiable since the time it was proposed, and not 

 have become so subsequently by the advance of the science. 



The Committee has also attempted to define as clearly as 

 possible the basis upon which generic, specific, and subspecific 

 names may reasonably and properly rest. 



While the Committee feels free to advise and recommend in 

 respect to future practices and principles in systematic nomen- 

 clature, it is obvious that no suggestions or rules should be of a 

 retroactive character, or partake of the nature of ex post facto 

 laws. Yet, so multifarious and often conflicting have been the 

 usages of publishing naturalists on many points of nomencla- 

 ture, that in many cases no rule can be adopted which will 

 not be to some extent retroactive. Thus, in seeking to attain a 

 basis of uniformity and stability, it is always necessary to go 

 back to the original forms of names, and consistently adhere to 

 them, in entire disregard of the verbal InnfA-ations of purists or 

 grammarians, who, aiming at classical correctness in names, 

 have too often brought about instability and confusion. It 

 seems out of the question to relax the law of priority, let the 

 immediate inconvenient results of adherence to that law be 

 what they may. 



And, in respect of any temporary inconvenience, or of any 

 seeming confusion which may be the immediate consequence 

 of its action, the Committee feels able to give assurance that 

 these are far lesser evils than some of those which it hopes to 

 do away with. The case of an unstable and far from uniform 

 system of nomenclature no more shows the need of improve- 

 ment, than admits of those changes which are necessary ; and 

 though the evils inseparable from all states of transition may be 

 obvious, they are themselves no less transitory, while the good 

 results of the strict and consistent application of sound prin- 

 ciples of nomenclature are likely long to endure. 



The following series of twenty-one propositions and affirma- 



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