501 
synonymy of a certain species as suited him, by the subterfuge of “de- 
claring it unrecognizable”, priority would be a mockery. 
_ The treatment of the genus Diglena Ehrenberg, 1830, proposed by 
de Beauchamp is not justified by the Code. As he states, Diglena 
was established for Diglena catellina = Cercaria catellina Müller and 
Diglena aurita n. sp. As the latter is an absolute nomen nudum, the 
genus is monotypic with Diglena catellina (Müller) as type. Regardless 
of the validity of the type species, the genus still dates from 1830; the 
proposal to select the type from species not included until 1832 is pro- 
hibited by Art. 30 (as amended at the Boston Congress), sect. II e: 
“The following species are excluded from consideration in selecting ty- 
pes of genera: (a) Species which were not included under the generic 
name at the time of its original publication”. 
The genus Hncentrum Ehrenberg is rejected by de Beauchamp, 
apparently because he considers it tied to Distemma on account of being 
originally published as a subgenus of the latter. According to Art. 6 
of the Code generic and subgeneric names are of equal value, so that, 
regardless of the final disposition of Destemma, Encentrum must stand 
on its own merits. Applying Opinion 46, Int. Comm. Zool. Nomencla- 
ture (Status of genera for which no species was distinctly named in the 
original publication), this genus is one of the “.... instances in which 
an author has described a genus, clearly giving generic characters, but 
failing to give either a separate description or figure (illustration) of the 
species he studied, and from the original publication it is not clear how 
many species (none of which he mentioned by name) were included in 
the genus”. The decision of the Commission is: “.... if it is not evident 
from the original publication of the genus how many or what species are 
involved, the genus contains all the species of the world which would 
come under the generic description as originally published, and the first 
species published in connection with the genus becomes ipso facto the 
type”. From this it is evident that, no matter how vague and all-embrac- 
ing the original definition of the genus, when a valid species, which can 
not be shown to be excluded by such definition, is cited with the generic 
name Encentrum, this becomes valid. As no species has ever been pub- 
lished in connection with the genus until the type designation in the 
Synopsis, it will be seen that the name Æncentrum Ehrenberg is valid 
for species congeneric with Encentrum marinum (Dujardin). Whether 
this genus should include all the species tentatively listed (the majority 
on de Beauchamp’s original suggestion) is obviously a purely zoolo- 
gical question. 
De Beauchamp recommends the application of “a little tact” in 
deciding nomenclatural questions. And yet it was precisely to banish 
