Obituary — Mr. W. Kinsey Dover, F.G.8. 47 



NEEDLESS ALTERATION OF ZOOLOGICAL NAMES. 

 Sir, — The want of a proper set of recognized canons to regulate 

 the selection and retention of generic and specific names is becoming 

 more and more urgent. We are constantly being told to abandon 

 some well-known name because an older one has been found, or 

 because it was previously given to some other organism ; but such 

 reasons are not sufficient by themselves. The author of a British 

 Museum Catalogue has lately attempted to introduce the name of 

 Meretrix instead of Cytlierea, and that of Larapusia in place of 

 Triton, two well-known genera of Mollusca; but the needlessness 

 of the change has been exposed by writers in the pages of " Nature," 

 and the author in question must be regarded as a culpable "disturber 

 of the public peace " of mind. 8uch unnecessary interference with 

 names engenders a feeling of opposition against any change of name, 

 even when the change is desirable and well-founded. Cannot the 

 Linnasan and Zoological Societies take common action with the 

 International Greological Congress in establishing an International 

 Committee on nomenclature, to which all new names and all 

 proposed alterations of names might be submitted ? The following 

 letter appeared in "Nature" for November, and might be reproduced 

 in every Biological and Geological Magazine. 



Exeter, November 21. A. J. Jukes-Beowne. 



Meretrix, Lamarck, 1799, versus Cytherea, Lamarck, 1806. 



In the notice of Mr. Newton's "List of Mollusca," in "Nature" of October 29 

 (vol. xKv. p. 610), I read as follows: — "Many old favourites have been thus 

 relegated to obscurity, whilst fresh names, dug up from some forgotten corner, 

 have, by the law of priority, taken their places. Thus, Meretrix, Lamarck, 1799, 

 takes the place of his better-known Cytherea of 1806, the latter having been applied 

 by Fabricius in 1805 to a dipterous insect." 



The Dipteron Cytherea obscura. Fab., 1805, was described nine years later than 

 Mutio obscurus, Latreille (1796), which is the same species. Meigen, in his 

 principal work (1820), acknowledged the priority, and the insect has been called 

 Mutio ever since. As the ty[)ical species is the same for both genera, there is no 

 chance whatever for Cytherea to be resuscitated, and it may well remain as the name 

 of the Mollusk. I most heartily agree with the opinion of the reviewer, that "it 

 would be an immense gain if every name proposed to be altered had to pass through 

 a regularly-constituted committee of investigation before it was accepted and allowed 

 to pass current." In such a committee, besides priority, two other paramount 

 scientific interests should be consulted, and they aie—cmifinuity and authority. 



Heidelberg, November 1. C. E,. Osten Sacken. 



WILLIAM KINSEY DOVER, F.G.S. 



We have to record the death of an old friend, and brother 

 geologist, Mr. William Kinsey Dover, F.Gr.S., who died at Low 

 Nest, near Keswick, on the 27th of March, 1891, in his seventy- 

 fifth year. After completing his education, Mr. Kinsey was for 

 some years engaged in mercantile pursuits, but he left London 

 in 1855, and entered the Cumberland Militia, in which he served as 

 Ensign (1855), Lieutenant (1861), and Captain in 1865. On his 

 retirement from the Militia in 1868, he devoted himself to Natural 



