38 



CODE OF NOMENCLATURE. 



of the ' Systema Naturae,' the only objection met with is that of injustice 

 to the pioneers in Zoology; but this laclis weight in view of remarks subse- 

 quently to be introduced (in reference to bibliography and synonymy), re- 

 specting due recognition of their labors. And here your Committee would 

 emphatically "irge that, the chief object of zoological nomenclature being to 

 secure unifor.Tiity of practice in the bestowal and adoption of names, the 

 rules lo iliat end should be formed with reference to principles and without 

 regard to personality, and that therefore the matter of justice or injustice 

 is in this connection without pertinence. 



The first rational appHcation of the principles of classification in regard to 

 the recognition of genera, as distinguished from species, is currently attrib- 

 uted to Tournefort in 1700, in his ' Institutiones Rei Hcrbariae.' Later (1742), 

 as already stated, he carried in a posthumous work the same practice into 

 Conchology. Other pre-Linnaean zoologists who recognized genera in a 

 strictly scientific manner are Lang (1721), Klein (1731-1734), Breyn (1732),^ 

 Adanson (1757), and Clerck (1757). The latter was also a strict binomial- 

 ist. There are possibly others, but in not fixing the starting-point at 1758 

 there is the disadvantage of having to admit the generic names of other pre- 

 Linnnean writers the character of whose works gives them no proper scientific 

 standing, as Link, Brown, Columa, etc. 



Dr. Asa Gray makes the sensible proposition respecting Botany that 

 "We have only to understand that genera adopted by Linnaeus from Tourne- 

 fort, etc., and so accredited, should continue to be thus cited ; that the date 

 1737 (Linn. Genera, ed. L), is, indeed, the point of departure from which to 

 reckon priority, yet that botanical genera began with Tournefort ; so that 

 Tournefortian genera whicli are accepted date from the year 1700. That is 

 the limit fixed by Linnaeus, and it definitely excludes the herbalists and the 

 ancients, whose writings may be consulted for hi-^torical elucidations, but 

 not as authority for names." * 



On the whole, it seems best that the origin of generic names in Zoology 

 should date (as said above) only from 1758 ; that names adopted from earlier 

 authors by Linnaeus date only from their adoption by Linnaeus ; and that in 

 other cases pre-Linnaean names shall date from their first introduction by 

 subsequent authors after 1758. 



Canon XIV. The adoption of a 'statute of limitation/ in 

 modification of the lex prioritatis^ is impracticable and inad- 

 missible. 



^ " Breynius as early as 1732 had, to S' me extent, adopted a binomial nomencla- 

 ture, accurately (for his period) discriminated genera and species, many of which 

 are readily recognized, but which had escaped the notice they deserved till a com- 

 paratively recent period." — A. Agassiz, Revision of the Echini, 1872, p. 12. 



2 Am. Jour. Sci., December, 1883, p. 423. 



