28 



CODE OF NOMENCLATURE. 



Botany, but zoologists are about equally divided on this score. The case of 

 "specific names to he written with a small initial," was formulated in the 

 original 15. A. Code as follows : — 



*'A convenient ///i-///t;r/Vz technica may be effected by adoptin^j our next 

 proposition. It has been usual, when the titles of species are derived from 

 proper names, to write them witli a capital letter, and hence when the spe- 

 cific name is used alone it is liable to be accidentally mist;iken for the name 

 of a jjenus. Ihit if the title of a species were invariably written with a small 

 initial, and tiiose of genera with a capita^ the eye would at once distin;,'uish 

 the rank of the group referred to. and a possiI)le source of error would be 

 avoided. It should further be remembered that all species are cquil [?] and 

 should therefore be written all alike. We suggest then, that 



"§ C. Specific names should always be written with a small initial letter, even 

 when derived from persons or places, and generic names should always be written 

 with a capital." {/A ^^. Code, 1842.) 



This suggestion appears to have been very generally adopted, by Brit- 

 ish zoologists especially, and of later years by many of those of America. 

 But the framers of the Revised Code, in 1865, cancelled it, in the following 

 terms : — 



" VI. The recommendation, ' Specific names to be written with a small initial.' 

 The Committee propose that this recommendation should be omitted. It is not of 

 great importance, and may be safely left to naturalists to deal with as they think fit." 

 (Recommendations of the Bath Committee, B. A., 1S65. [§ C. and its preamble, of the 

 Original B. A. Code, are accordingly omitted in the Revised B. A. Code.]) 



The code of the French Zoological Society, and that of the International 

 Zoological Congress, each leaves the writer free to follow his own preference 

 in this matter. 



Your Committee agrees that it is a trivial matter, hardly to enter into a 

 canon of nomenclature. But its preference is decidedly in favor of the uni- 

 form use of the lower case, and, feeling called upon to express ics view, it 

 has embodied it in the above Canon, without in the least insisting upon its 

 importance. 



Canon IX. Proper names do not attach to individual organ- 

 isms, nor to groups of lower grade than subspecies ; names 

 which may be applied to hybrids, to monstrosities or other in- 

 dividual peculiarities, or to artificial varieties, such as domestic 

 breeds of animals, having no status in zoological nomenclature. 



Remark. — Such organisms, having no natural permanent existence, need 

 no recognition by name in a zoological .system. 



v-^i; 



A. 





