S. 8. Buckman—Paleontological Nomenclature. 119 
had named, and that now there is “a tendency to confine a species 
within narrower limits than heretofore.” I contend, however, that 
this is not the fact, but rather that we are in possession of an 
increased number of new forms and an increased amount of know- 
ledge concerning their affinities and differences, and most certainly 
it is not the fact with regard to the species which he quotes. Am. 
serpentinus is not only not the same species, but so far as I can judge, 
not even the same genus as Am. falcifer. The large Ammonite figured 
as jurensis by Dr. Wright is not only most certainly not Zieten’s 
species, but is even characteristic of the Opalinum-zone. The name 
Ammonites jurensis has been the cause of some singular mistakes. 
I believe that it is an open secret that when Dr. Wright first visited 
the Dorset Inferior Oolite, and saw the large Lytoceras which I have 
since named Lyt. confusum, he mistook it for Am. jurensis, and there- 
fore classed the Inferior Oolite there as Lias, considering it to 
be on the same horizon as the Gloucestershire Cephalopoda-bed. 
Is not this an instance of the harm that can be done by extending 
the scope of a specific name? As to Am. Sowerbyi, it is none too 
easy to exactly determine what may be the adult form of the small 
specimen figured by Sowerby ; but nevertheless my experience is 
that the majority of Ammonites labelled Sowerbyi in our public collec- 
tions have but little to do with that species. When | first began 
collecting Ammonites, I found that all spinous falciform Ammonites of 
the Inferior Oolite were considered to be either Am. Sowerbyi, if with 
large coarse spines, or Am. variabilis, if compressed and with less 
conspicuous spines, and in fact the unfortunate meaning of the latter 
name was an excuse for placing any falciform Ammonites to that 
species that could not well be located elsewhere. ‘This was the 
method of “ general geologists,” and the species they so named had 
nothing at all to do with d’Orbigny’s Am. variabilis and but little 
with Am. Sowerbyi. What was the result? The ideas about the 
sequence of the Inferior Oolite beds and their correlation with those 
elsewhere were extremely indefinite, merely owing to a lax deter- 
mination of the Ammonites. 
Now I come to the trinomial system. Again I ask why should 
palzontological nomenclature differ from that of all other sciences ? 
Are we likely to get other sciences to change their now well-estab- 
lished nomenclature from the binomial to the trinomial system, and 
if not, why should paleontology desire to be peculiar? The 
binomial system has been used by it hitherto, and it would cause as 
much inconvenience to change to the trinomial system as it will to 
continue the binomial and without, I think, the same advantage. 
Quenstedt has used a trinomial and even a quadrinomial nomenclature, 
but in a haphazard way, and when we come to such a name as his 
Ammonites angulatus compressus gigas, it seems to me that we have 
done with both elegance and utility. A modified trinomial system 
is practically in general use for varieties, and may well continue so, 
as Ludwigia Murchisone, var. obtusa. But supposing that the name 
of a well-known Ammonite is to be used instead of the new generic 
names, I would ask Mr. Haddow to kindly arrange the following 
species under a trinomial system, viz. :— 
