28 OPINIONS AND DECLARATIONS RENDERED BY THE INTERNATIONAL 



Stanford University, California, in the following letter dated I4th 

 May 1935 :— 



The undersigned stiidents of the Mollusca feel that the International 

 Commission on Zoological Nomenclature should render an Opinion on the 

 following question : 



Shall the names proposed hy Chemnitz (i 769-1 795) stand P 



It is agreed generally among conchologists that volumes later than 

 volume eleven of the classic work of Martini and Chemnitz entitled ' ' Con- 

 chylien Cabinet " contain names that are available. There is, however, no 

 Opinion to cover Volumes i to 11, inclusive, as far as we are aware. 



The arguments in favour of accepting as available the names in Volumes 

 I to II, inclusive, are as foUows : 



(i) In many instances in these volumes, Chemnitz was both binary and 

 binominal. 



(2) Other accepted authors, such as Bolten,^ are not consistently bi- 

 nominal. 



(3) Because of his masterly presentation of data, many subsequent 

 writers have referred to Chemnitz, and acceptance of his names 

 would obviate much juggling of synonymy. 



(4) In Volume 11, it is certain that he had accepted the Linnean System 

 of nomenclature, and it is possible that he used it in earlier volumes. 



The arguments against accepting Volumes i to 11, inclusive, are as 

 foUows : — 



(i) Dali (1902 : 339) and others claim that Chemnitz is not consistently 

 binominal in Volumes i to 11, inclusive. 



(2) R. B. Stewart (1930 : 29) Claims that Opinion 89 ' might be an 

 analogous case. 



(3) Acceptance would cause much label-changing. 



^ A comparison of the Musemn Boltenianum (which in Opinion 96 has 

 been accepted by the International Commission as available nomen- 

 clatorially) with Martini and Chemnitz shows that, unlike the latter, almost 

 all the specific names used in the Museum Boltenianum consist of binominal 

 combinations of generic and trivial names, as required by Article 2 of the 

 International Code. Mr. R. Winckworth (London) has.reported to the 

 International Commission as follows (in litt., 2oth May 1944) : — 



I examined every page of the Museum Boltenianum last night and found 

 only 27 (out of 2,099) specific names, in which the trivial namewas appar- 

 ently two words. Most of these are phrases such as Lambis pes pelecani 

 and Serpula clava Herculis, which are exactly paralleled by Linnaeus' Bulla 

 auris Midae (1758, Syst. Nat. (ed. 10) 1 : 728) and Cypraea caput serpentis 

 (17-58, ibid. (ed. 10) 1 : 720), etc. ; there are also a few adjectives, in which 

 the component parts are printed apart as Nenta nigra cincta and Cypraea 

 quinque fasciata ; it seems reasonable in a book in which the printing is 

 poor and many misprints occur to treat these names as equivalent to 

 Nerita nigrocincta and Cypraea quinquefasciata. Two names only remain 

 which seem to be really lapses from a binominal nomenclature, viz., Nerita 

 schmideliana sinistrorsa, fossilis and Nerita fascia lata (nude). 



^ In Opinion 89 the International Commission, acting under their plenary 

 powers, suspended the rules in order to suppress six early zoological works. 

 This action was taken without prejudice to the question whether any, or 

 all, of these works were by authors who had not applied the principles of 

 binary nomenclature and were therefore already invalid under proviso (b) 

 to Article 25 of the International Code. 



