5 
129 INDEX GENERUM MAMMALIUM. 
"nk. In such cases the reference for the first publication of the form 
* ido? is also included. 
RULES CONCERNING FAMILY NAMES. 
In the use of designations of higher groups much more latitude is 
allowed than in the case of either genera or species. In fact on many 
points modern codes of nomenclature are silent or very indefinite. 
This will be apparent on comparing the provisions quoted below from 
the four principal zoological codes, namely, the Stricklandian Code of 
1837-42, the code of the American Ornithologists’ Union, 1886; the 
rules of nomenclature adopted by the International Congress of 
Zoology (the Paris-Moscow Code, 1889-92), and the report of the 
International Commission for Zoological Nomenclature, submitted to 
the Fourth International Congress, 1595. 
Stricklandian Code, 1837.“—Rule 16. The names of tribes, fami- 
lies, and subfamilies should each have a distinctive termination. 
(Swainson. ) 
18. The names of families and subfamilies should be derived from 
the most typical genus in them. (Swainson.) 
These rules were modified in 1842? as follows: 
B. It is recommended that the assemblages of genera termed fami- 
lies should be uniformly named by adding the termination ‘ idve’ to 
the name of the earliest-known or most typically characterized genus 
in them, and that their subdivisions, termed subfamilies, should be 
similarly constructed, with the termination * ine.’ 
These words are formed by changing the last syllable of the geni- 
tive case into ‘ide’ or ‘ine,’ as strix, strigis, strigide; buceros, 
bucerotis, bucerotidee; not strixide, bucerido. 
A. O. U. Code, 1886.—Canon 5. Proper names of families and sub- 
families take the tenable name of some genus, preferably the leading 
one, which these groups, respectively, contain, with change of termi- 
nation into ‘ide’ or ‘ine.’ When the generic name becomes a 
synonym, a current family or subfamily name based upon such 
generic name becomes untenable. 
Canon 16. The law of priority is only comparatively operative in 
relation to names of groups higher than genera, and only where names: 
are strictly synonymous. ^ 

? Charlesworth's Mag. Nat. Hist., I, p. 175, 1837. 
5 Rept. Brit. Ass. Adv. Sci., p. 119, 1843. 
eA time will doubtless arrive when mutations in the names of the higher groups, 
particularly families, will be as unnecessary as they are undesirable; but in zoology 
that time has not yet come. 
“It should be clearly borne in mind that such changes are only allowable when 
by mutation of the characters, or through newly discovered facts, the name in ques- 
tion has become glaringly erroneous or liable to introduce errors or confusion into 
science. In family names, this occurs most often when a genus from whose name 
that of the family must have been taken is removed from association with the 
