Z,D. 



THE ZOOLOGIST. 



THIRD SERIES. 



Vol. VIII.] JULY, 1884. [No. 9L 



ON THE APPLICATION OF TRINOMIAL NOMENCLATURE 



TO ZOOLOGY.* 



By Dk. Elliot Coues. 



I HAVE no formal paper to present on the subject of the 

 Application of Trinomial Nomenclature to Zoology ; but speaking 

 off-hand, I wish to offer a few remarks upon a subject at the 

 present time attracting much attention — upon a matter which has 

 come up within the last few years, and which bids fair to effect a 

 very decided change in our system of naming objects in biology. 

 In former years I have not thought it necessary to bring the 

 matter to the notice of the National Academy of Sciences, 

 because it had not then assumed a status or position which 

 appeared to warrant such a course. Now, however, it seems pro- 

 bable that a decided innovation upon a system of nomenclature 

 which has been in vogue for a century and a quarter is likely to 

 be made, at least in one department of zoology. The question 

 is, therefore, whether that innovation is desirable or not— whether 

 the change is to be accepted or rejected ; and, if accepted, how 

 far it is likely to be applicable to other departments of zoologj^, 

 as well as to ornithology. 



As is well known to you all, since Linnaeus established a 

 binomial system of nomenclature in which each organism should 

 be known by two terms, generic and specific— since 1758, when 

 that system was first consistently and systematically applied to 

 zoology, there has been until the last few years no formal or 



* Address to the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, April, 1884. 

 ZOOLOGIST.— JULY, 1884. U 



