16 



CODE OF NOMENCLATURE. 



The principle embodied in the above recommendation of Dall is said by 

 him to be "inferentially admitted to be valid by the B. A. Committee in 

 iheir remarks on Artedi and Scopoli." Thorell, in his monograph of the 

 Spiders, has adopted, so far as species are concerned, a similar plan, taking 

 the binomial work of Clerck, 1757, on Swedish Spiders as his * epoch-maker.' 

 A. Agassiz, in Echinology, has brought the ancient names of Klein, Lang, 

 Breyn, and others, into scientific nomenclature. G. R. Gray, in Ornithology, 

 goes to the first edition of the ' Systema,' 1735, ^^r genera, and to the tenth, 

 1758, for species, having many followers in different countries. In America, 

 so far as Ornithology is concerned, the use of 1758 for the starting-point for 

 species is practically universal, the tendency being to take genera from the 

 same date alsc. 



As to replies on this point to the circular issued by Mr. Dall, there 

 are 18 for 1758, 17 for 1766, i for 1736, and two botanists for 1753 ; no an- 

 swer, 7. 



Your Committee, having duly weighed all the evidence before it, is 

 compelled to dissent from the rulings of both the B. A. Committees, and 

 from all others which do not make 1758 the starting-point for zoological 

 nomenclature ; and it is prepared to give reasons for the decision it has 

 reached. 



(i) The Xth edition is the one in which Linnaeus first introduced the 

 binomial nomenclature, and in which its use is uniform, consistent, and com- 

 plete. (2) This date admits to recognition the works of Artedi, Scopoli, 

 Clerck, Pallas, Briinnich, Brisson, in favor of the first-named two of whom, 

 and of the last-named one, the B. A. Committees have had to make special 

 exceptions, 1 thereby rendering the rule inconsistent in itself. (3) The Xth, 

 rather than the Xllth, is already accepted as the starting-point by a majority 

 of the naturalists of North America and of Northern Europe, with obviously 

 a growing tendency to abandon the Xllth. The Commission de Nomencla- 

 ture de la Society Zoologique de France (1881), and the Rules adopted by 

 the Congr^s G^ologique International (1882), make no reference to any 

 edition of the ' Systema Naturae Linnzei,' nor do they place any limit of 

 time for the beginning of the law of priority, but accept all generic and spe- 



^ For example, the paragraph immediately following § 2 in the original B. A. 

 Code reads : " It should be here explained, that Brisson, who was a contemporary of 

 Linnaeus and acquainted with the * Systema Natura:,' defined and published certain 

 genera of birds which are additional [and likewise prior] to those in the 12th edition 

 of Linnaeus's work, and which are therefore of perfectly good authority. Bat Brisson 

 still adhered to the old mode of designating species by a sentence instead of a word, 

 and therefore while we retain his defined genera we do not extend the same indul- 

 gence to the titles of his species, even when the latter are accidentally binomial in 

 form." — .ff. A. Code, 1842. 



For the exceptions made in 1865 by the B. A. Committee in favor of Artedi and 

 Scopoli, see foot-note on p. 34. 



