24 INDEX GENERUM MAMMALIUM. 
other course leaves the door wide open to emendation and resultant 
confusion. 
How a generic name should be spelled may seem a comparatively 
unimportant matter, but questions of correct form have in certain 
cases proved very fruitful of discussion. Appropriateness and philo- 
logical elegance in scientific names are duly appreciated, but are less 
important than permanence. Correcting misspelled or badly formed 
words causes more confusion than preservation of the original form.^ 
Consequently emendations of all kinds are ignored except by the com- 
paratively few authors, who refuse to adopt a name which they con- 
sider misspelled, even though they may differ among themselves as to 
the correct form. This diversity of opinion exists not only in the 
case of words of barbarous origin, but also in those derived from 
classical roots that offer a choice in forming compounds. The term 
* variants? is here used to cover the various forms of names. 
Variants are properly of two kinds—emendations and misprints; but 
it is often difficult to tell whether a particular form of a word is a cor- 
rection or is simply a misspelling, due to inadvertence. In the pres- 
ent list special care has been taken to preserve the original spelling of 
every name, and to give the more important variations. 
Emendations.—Some of the variants which are likely to prove most 
troublesome are those involving a change in the initial letter in trans- 
forming Greek derivatives into Latin, alteration in a diphthong, inser- 
tion of h, and substitution of c for k. yocerus has been corrected to 
Z"Egocerus; Ailurus, to zcElurus; Aplocerus, to Haplocerus; Reithrodon, 
to Rhithrodon; Rytina, to Rhytina; Nobus, to Cobus; Nesokia, to 
Nesocia. Greek endings and diphthongs are similarly modified to 
convert them into Latin form. ///pposideros becomes [Hipposiderus,; 
Cheiromys, Chiromys; Pithecheir, Pithechirus or Pithecochirus. | Pre- 
ferences in spelling are illustrated by such alterations as A//actaga to 
Alactaga, and Patelus to Ratellus. Still more radical changes have 
been proposed, such as emending ;1odo» to Anodon, Megacerops to 
Megaceratops, and Megatherium to Megalotherium. It has even been 
suggested that Ca/ogenys should be transformed into Genyscelus, on 
the ground that the Latin form Ca/ogenus is an inaccurate translitera- 
tion, since the Latin u does not correspond to the Greek upsilon, and 
that therefore the roots should be reversed in order to obtain a proper 
ending. To illustrate the extent to which emendation may be carried, 
the modifications of 6 names are given below; but the most remark- 


* Hence the importance of following the suggestions for making new names which 
accompany the recent codes on nomenclature. Two papers on this special subject 
are: Walter Miller, ‘Scientific Names of Latin and Greek Derivation,’ Proc. Calif. 
Acad. Sci., 3rd ser., Zool., I, pp. 115-143, 1897; Kretschmar, ‘Sprachregeln für die 
Bildung und Betonung zoologischer und botanischer Namen,' Berlin, 1899. 
