ZOOLOGICAL NOMENCLATURE. 357 



meeting in Newcastle, as follows : — That Sir W. Jardine, A. Jl. 

 Wallace, J. E. Gray, C. C. Babington, Dr. Francis, P. L. 

 Sclater, C. Spence Bate, P. P. Carpenter, Dr. J. D. Hooker, 

 Professor Balfour, H. T. Stainton, J. Gwyn Jeffreys, A. New- 

 ton, Professor T. H. Huxley, Professor Allman, and G. Ben- 

 tham, be a committee, with power to add to their number, to 

 report on the chauges which they may consider it desirable to 

 make, if any, in the rules of nomenclature drawn up at the 

 instance of the Association by Mr. Strickland and others, with 

 power J to reprint these rules and to correspond with foreign 

 naturalists and others on the best means of insuring their general 

 adoption.— £15." 



Accordingly the rules, as originally approved of, are now re- 

 printed, and zoologists are requested to examine them carefully, 

 and to communicate any suggestions for alteration or improve- 

 ment on or before 1st June 1864, to Sir William Jardine, 

 Bart., Jardine Hall, by Locherby, N. B., who will consult with 

 the members of the committee, and report upon the subject at 

 the next meeting of the British Association appointed to be 

 held at Bath. 



Jaedine Hall, 8th Sept. 1863. 



Series of Propositions for rendering the Nomenclature of 



Zoology uniform and permanent. 



[Reprinted from the Report of the British. Association for 184-2.] 



Peeface. 



All persons who are conversant with the present state of 

 Zoology must be aware of the great detriment which the 

 science sustains from the vagueness and uncertainty of its 

 nomenclature. We do not here refer to those diversities of 

 language which arise from the various methods of classification 

 adopted by different authors, and which are unavoidable in the 

 present state of our knowledge. So long as naturalists differ 

 in the views which they are disposed to take of the natural 

 affinities of animals there will always be diversities of classifi- 

 cation, and the only way to arrive at the true system of nature 

 is to allow perfect liberty to systematists in this respect. But 

 the evil complained of is of a different character. It consists 

 in this, that when naturalists are agreed as to the characters 

 and limits of an individual group or species, they still 

 disagree in the appellations by which they distinguish it. A 

 genus is often designated by three or four, and a species by 

 twice that number of precisely equivalent synonyms ; and in 

 the absence of any rule on the subject, the naturalist is wholly 

 at a loss what nomenclature to adopt. The consequence is, 

 that the so-called commonwealth of science is becoming daily 



