Remarks on Zoological Nomenclature. 19 



the committee that framed them were evidently conscious that 

 they were laboring, not for their countrymen alone, but for the 

 scientific world at large ; and those laws are undoubtedly the 

 best, whose authority will be admitted by the greatest number 

 of authors interested. 



This Dr. Gould (Vol. xlv, p. 10 of this Journal) appears to 

 have overlooked, in his excellent remarks on the subject, or he 

 would probably not have demurred to the requisition that specific 

 names should have a small initial letter. The committee (gen- 

 eral convenience out of the question) evidently saw the impro- 

 priety of imposing the partial practice of their own vernacular 

 upon a language used to a great extent in other lands, where no 

 local practice would be admitted. We know it to be customary 

 in Germany and France, to commence all adjectives v/ith a small 

 letter ; whilst in English, many words derived from persons and 

 places follow the same rule.* 



If no distinction be made in favor of personal names (univer- 

 sal consent being, in this instance, more important than classical 

 precedent,) it will have a tendency to discredit the practice of 

 commemorating every collector with a species. Nor do I think 

 so lightly of the objection that isolated generic and specific 

 names may be confounded. Mythological names are used in 

 both ways to a great extent, many generic names are pure ad- 

 jectives, and many specific ones have been raised to generic, so 

 that the distinction indicated by the initial letter, becomes of 

 great service. The following are a few of those used both in a 

 generic and specific sense : — rwpicola, spectrum, aotus, microsto- 

 ma, chromis, cynocephalus, molossus, glaucus, gobio, calceola, 

 crabro, trochilus. 



The practice was introduced here twenty-five years ago, of 

 writing personal specific names without a declensional termina- 

 tion, and a few authors appear disposed to revive it. Thus we- 

 have Squalus cuvier, Les., S. spallanzani, Sqnatina dumeril, 

 and perhaps Chama lazarus. This, with the genitive tnerilii, 

 the adjective tJierilina, spallanzanceus, gives us three forms for 

 a personal specific appellation,! and I see no particular objection 



* As galvanic, galvanism, Calvinism, dolphic, transatlantic, congreve-rocket. 

 t As in English, we can say, the Washington monument, Washington's monu- 

 ment, or the monument of Washington. 



