A LIST OF THE GENERA AND FAMILIES OF MAMMALS. 27 
ing Orycnus Gill (instead of Zhynnus) for one and Orcynus for the 
other. In 1894 Gill showed that 77wnnws of South, 1845, antedated 
Orycnus, and this name has been adopted by Jordan and Evermann.^ 
In revising the group in 1889, Dresslar and Fesler stated the case 
as follows: 
The name Orycnus was first used by Dr. Gill in 1862. It was due to a misreading 
of Cuvier’s name Orcynus and it should be placed in the category of emendations of 
that name. If the name itself is preoccupied, erroneous or various spellings of it 
due to misprints, misreadings, or purism ought to be preoccupied also. | Orcynus had 
been previously used when Cuvier gave it as the name of the long-finned Tunnies. 
To spell it Oryenus does notsaveit.... The name Orycnus Cooper, it seems to us, 
is preoccupied by its previous use for another genus or subgenus by Gill. It is, 
therefore ineligible. In other words, a generic name originating in a misprint of a 
well-known name can not be later used as the name of another genus. ^ 
The opposite view, however, was taken by Dr. Gill, who in the 
same year comments on the case as follows: 
As Thynnus is preoccupied in insects, the name Orycnus, applied by Gill to the 
same type, may perhaps be retained although founded on a mistake. . .. The present 
author would have been glad if the name Orycnus could have fallen into ‘innocuous 
desuetude,’ but inasmuch as it had been specifically and with malice prepense resur- 
rected and proposed for retention by Cooper, it must surely be retained for the genus 
comprising the Tunny and Albicore. ¢ 
Later, in 1894, he proposed to adopt Zhunnus on the following 
grounds: 
The name Thunnus was thus suggested and used as a substitute for Thynnus and 
as sufficiently distinct from the latter; it has classical sanction, the form Thunnus- 
being the regular one and preferred by many scholars to Thynnus. Thunnus, it is 
true, is a mere variant of Thynnus, but, being a variant, it is different and as different, 
was formally introduced as a substitute for Thynnus. By most American ichthyolo- 
gists it will therefore be accepted. 4 
Similar cases have occurred in the generic names of mammals. 
Recently Waite in proposing the name Zhylacomys for an Australian 
mouse, called attention to an obscure name given by Owen many 
years previously to a group of marsupials, but contended that because 
the latter was spelled Zhalacomys (an obvious misprint), it did not 
preoccupy his name. Subsequently it was shown that Owen’s name 
was in reality first printed Zhy/acomys, but it appeared in one pub- 
lication and the description in another, so that the name might be 
considered a nomen nudum. It had, however, been used afterwards in 
correct form in connection with a marsupial prior to its application to 
a mouse. Waite thereupon admitted that his Zhy/acomys was pre- 
occupied and replaced it by a new name. Thomas, while admitting 
the claims of Owen's name, with characteristic caution preferred to 

*Fishes N. and Mid. Am., I, p. 869, 1896. 
^ Dresslar and Fesler, Bull. U. S. Fish Comm. for 1887, VII, p. 437, 1889. 
€ Gill, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., XI, 1888, pp. 319-320, July, 1889. 
d Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., XVI, pp. 693-694, 1894. 
