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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXX. No. 768 



Zoological Congress for arbitration, and that 

 its decision be accepted as final. Still further, 

 I have already submitted a number of such 

 questions to this committee for decision, and 

 stand ready to accept its decision of them, 

 even should it chance to be adverse to my own 

 personal views in the matter. This should 

 answer Mr. Caudell's assumption, or at least 

 insinuation, that I " hold that personal judg- 

 ment should enter into the solving of this 

 important problem " of genera without species, 

 and that I am committed to " methods where 

 personal opinion is given full, sway." The 

 tendency shown in frequent articles in Sci- 

 ence and in various other scientific journals* 

 to refer diificult questions in zoological nomen- 

 clature to a committee of arbitration, whose 

 decision, right or wrong, shall be final, I con- 

 sider one of the most hopeful signs for the 

 future in the nomenclatural field. 



To come now to the particular question 

 under discussion, namely, genera without spe- 

 cies. In my former paper on this subject I 

 claimed that each so-called speciesless genus 

 should be considered by itself, on its own 

 merits. As said before, it was considered the 

 correct thing, a century ago, for a systematist 

 to publish a synopsis of a class of animals, 

 giving merely diagnoses of the generic and 

 higher groups; at least many such synopses 

 were published, and were then held in favor- 

 able estimation. Most of the genera in such 

 cases had been already established by previous 

 authors and stand, of course, on the basis fur- 

 nished them by their founders, and had origi- 

 nally one or more species referred to them, but 

 of course were without designated types. In 

 these systematic synopses some new genera 

 were proposed, which, if not homonyms, and 

 were not given preoccupied names, have been 

 accepted and long since became part of the 

 established nomenclature of systematic zo- 

 ology. There were not, however, full-fledged 

 and properly habilitated genera, from the mod- 

 ern view-point, until the necessity for geno- 



* See especially Dr. W. H. Call's " A Nomen- 

 clatural Court?" Science, Vol. XXX., pp. 147- 

 149, July 30, 1909; and Dr. F. A. Bather, in 

 Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist. (8), Vol. IV., p. 41, 

 July, 1909. 



types became recognized and types for them 

 had been duly designated. 



Apparently Mr. Caudell does not see any- 

 thing very absurd in recognizing an ornitho- 

 logical genus based on an unmentioned three- 

 toed woodpecker, but thinks the case would be 

 quite different with a genus based on an un- 

 mentioned species of hymenopterous or dip- 

 terous insect with a particular kind of forking 

 of a wing-vein. I agree with him perfectly 

 on both these points, for in the one case the 

 species on which the genus was based is iden- 

 tifiable and in the other it is not. I am per- 

 fectly weU aware that there are hundreds of 

 speciesless genera that are absolutely uniden- 

 tifiable, and that they are especially the bane 

 of entomology. In every instance they should 

 be rejected; but they can not be wholly ig- 

 nored, since, as they are not nomina nuda, the 

 name given them is preoccupied for further 

 use in zoology. 



The whole question of genera without spe- 

 cies is badly muddled by bringing into it 

 irrelevant matters. It is not difiicult to de- 

 cide what named groups are entitled, from the 

 standpoint of the author who proposed them, 

 to be regarded as " genera " (and in this con- 

 nection subgenera must come into the same 

 category), or have been recognized as genera 

 in literature. The only point is whether they 

 are good genera or bad genera — in other 

 words, whether they are identifiable or un- 

 identifiable from the basis furnished by the 

 original founder. Of course, there may be 

 differences of opinion as to whether or not a 

 certain genus is identifiable; but this is a 

 question of zoology and not of nomenclature, 

 although the result of any decision on the 

 point will necessarily affect nomenclature. 

 The simile of " a family of Smiths without a 

 John or a Jane in it," or " a name Johnson 

 before any one was born to bear it," is, to my 

 mind, wholly beside the case; as is also Mr. 

 Caudell's assumption that " a genus without 

 a species has no object; it is a name applied 

 to a conception, not to an object, and can 

 therefore have no place in systematic nomen- 

 clature." This, it strikes me, is reductio ad 

 absurdum. Identifiable genera without spe- 



