38 AMERICAN MIDLAND NATURALIST 



a University affecting the authorship of zoological names under 

 the Code. (4) Do we have any internal, specific statement or 

 evidence that Retzius is the author of the thesis? Upon the evi- 

 dence adduced, we must draw our conclusions. 



(i) Dr. Dall in his letter of 13 Feb. 191 2, expresses the opinion 

 that the thesis is not "published." He does this upon the basis 

 that no publisher's name appears upon the title page, the ablative 

 phrase alone "Typis Berlingianis" being used. But he clearly 

 involves himself, since, while denying the publication of the 

 thesis thus, in 1788, he would assign the genera to Retzius, of that 

 year. Again, if we were to reject as unpublished, all zoological 

 names contained in theses upon whose title pages the word " pub- 

 lished " or its equivalent, in Dr. Dall's opinion, did not appear, 

 we wou d be obliged to reject names wholesale. If Doctor Dall's 

 contention were valid, then the authorship of these molluscan 

 genera should be referred to the next author who used the names 

 given by Philipsson. The genus Unio, for example, if I mistake 

 not, would then be referred to Bruguiere, 1792. Even the obsolete 

 provision of the old codes regarding manuscript names recognized 

 and used by authors, and in the first publication, recognized and 

 credited to the manuscript author, would not operate. If we 

 can accept as evidence of publication "the act of making known, 

 or offering to the public by sale or gratuitous distribution," clearly 

 this thesis is as truly published as any thesis ever was. 



(2.) As Doctor Stiles states, in his remarks on Art. 21, of 

 the Code, previously quoted, while primarily the International 

 Zoological Code aims to give to each author of a scientific com- 

 bination the fullest justice possible, yet the purpose of the Code 

 in its rules regarding authority for names is chiefly to assist in 

 tracing names generic and specific to their sources in zoological 

 literature. 



We have considered that the thesis was published. The next 

 question is, who is the publisher. As will be seen from the title 

 page, the name of the master Retzius appears in the largest type, 

 and hence it has been inferred by some that the authorship of the 

 master is thus intimated. Passing this contention, which is with- 

 out any objective foundation, we come to the question of the 

 publisher of the thesis. We may well consider, it seems to me, 

 the person who bore the expense of the thesis-publication as the 

 publisher, everything else being equal. And as the code recog- 



