RULES OF ZOOLOGICAL NOMENCLATURE. 35 



authority until they are published with characters*. Nor can any unpub- 

 lished descriptions, however exact (such as those of Forster, which are still 

 shut tip in a MS. at Berlin), claim any right of priority till published, and 

 then only from the date of their publication. The same rule applies to cases 

 where groups or species are published, but not defined, as in some museum 

 catalogues, and in Lesson's ' Traite d Ornithologie,' where many species are 

 enumerated by name, without any description or reference by which they 

 can be identified. Therefore, — 



§ 12. A name winch has never been clearly defined in some published 

 work should be changed for the earliest name by which the object shall have 

 been so defined. 



[Si>ecijic names, when adopted as generic, must be changed.] 



The necessity for the following ride will be best illustrated by an example. 

 The Corvus pyrrhocntrcue, Linn., was afterwards advanced to a genus under 

 the name of Pyrrhocorax. Temminck adopts this generic name, and also 

 retains the old specific one, so that he terms the species Pyrrhocorax pyr- 

 rhocorax. The inelegance of this method is so great as to demand a change 

 of the generic name. We propose, therefore, that 



§ 13. A specific name must not be altered in order to use that name for 

 the genus ; where this has been already done the old specific name must be 

 restored, and a new generic name given to prevent an unharmonious repetition. 



N.B. — It will be seen, however, below that we strongly object to the 

 further continuance of this practice of elevating specific names into generic. 



[Latin orthography to he adhered to.'] 



On the subject of orthography it is necessary to lay down one proposi- 

 tion, — 



§ 14. In writing zoological names, the rules of Latin orthography must 

 be adhered to. 



In Latinizing Greek words there are certain rides of orthography known 

 to classical scholars which must never be departed from. For instance, the 

 names which modern authors have written Aipucnemia, Zenophasia, poio- 

 cephala, must, according to the laws of etymology, be spelt ^Epycnemia, 

 Xenoph isia, and pceocephala. In Latinizing modern words the rules of classic 

 usage do not apply, and all that we can do is to give to such terms as clas- 

 sical an appearance as we can, consistently with the preservation of their 

 etymology. In the case of European words whose orthography is fixed, it is 

 best to retain the original form, even though it may include letters and com- 

 binations unknown in Latin. Such words, for instance, as Woodivardi, 

 Knighti, BuUocki, Eschscholtzi, would be qiute unintelligible if they were 

 Latinized into J'udvardi, Cnichti, Bidlocei, Essolzi, &e. But words of bar- 

 barous origin, having no fixed orthography, are more pliable, and hence, 

 when adopted into the Latin, they should be rendered as classical in appear- 

 ance as is consistent with the preservation of their original sound. Thus 

 the words Tortus, awsuree, argoondah, leundoo, &c., should, when Latinized, 

 have been written Toccus, ausure, argunda, cundu, &c. Such words ought, 

 in all practicable cases, to have a Latin termination given them, especially if 

 they are used generically. 



In Latinizing proper names, the simplest rule appears to be to use the 

 termination -us, genitive -i, when the name ends with a consonant, as in 



* These MS. names are hi all cases liable to create confusion, and it is therefore much 

 to be desired that the practice of using them should be avoided in future. 



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