96 Btdletin oj the Brooklyn Entomological Society Voi. viii 



interesting that this apparently arctic species is found in eastern 

 New York." We may add that it is still more interesting that it 

 should be found in New Jersey. 



ON NOMENCLATURE. 



The Principle of Priority — Its Use and Abuse. 



The principle of priority in zoological nomenclature is fun- 

 damentally a rule of equity. Its chief end is to ensure to every man 

 the credit and reward for his taxonomic endeavor and labors. It 

 is, in brief, this — that the first to recognize and describe some living 

 being as heretofore undiscovered shall get the credit and recog- 

 nition due to his keener perceptions or greater knowledge. In 

 the abstract, nothing can be urged against its application — its 

 concrete workings are the subject of much heartburning, contro- 

 versy, and even bitter recrimination. The diihculty is not with 

 the law itself, but it lies in its application, or, rather, its non-obser- 

 vance. Every nomenclatorialist is, and has been, a law unto 

 himself. When the strict application of priority has clashed with 

 some cherished and long-familiar name, it has been ruthlessly 

 sacrificed on some pretext or another. Few, if any, seem to have 

 the courage to follow where logic leads them; fewer still are those 

 who are impartial and impersonal enough to recognize and set 

 aside their own prepossessions as cold-bloodedly as they do 

 another's. 



In nomenclature to-day we have one law of priority and as 

 many applications as there are men. All profess entire allegiance 

 to the principle, but — with exceptions. Dr. Puton, the noted 

 French entomologist, in the preface to his Catalogue of the Palas- 

 arctic Hemiptera, does homage to priority "mitigated by a wise 

 prescription." Lo! you! the milk in the cocoanut! Mitigation! 

 Wisdom! Prescription! Who shall judge as to the mitigation? 

 Whose wisdom shall apply ? Who shall set the prescriptive limits ? 

 Shall it devolve upon the users of the law? Shall it be governed 

 by an oligarchic Committee? Shall it be finally, the plajrthing 

 of each and every Zoological Congress to be changed perhaps 

 every year according to the dominant sentiment in a more or less 

 heterogeneous and (on this point), uninformed assemblage? In 



