SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVII. No. 941 



associate professor of agricultural engineer- 

 ing. Mr. F. C. Gates, who recently finished 

 the work for his doctorate at the University of 

 Michigan, is instructor in botany. Mr. 

 Edgar M. Ledyard, who spent the past year at 

 the University of Michigan where he put the 

 entomological collection in order and left some 

 sixty thousand Philippine insects, has re- 

 turned to his work as assistant professor in 

 entomology. Dr. H. N. Whitford has re- 

 signed as associate professor of forest botany 

 and silviculture, and has returned to the 

 United States. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 



THE VOTE ON THE PRIORITY RULE 



To THE Editor of Science: A brief rejoinder 

 may be permitted to the report by Messrs. 

 Nutting, Williston and Ward in Science for 

 December 13, on a vote on the rule of Priority 

 an Nomenclature. 



Primarily this vote shows something quite 

 different from what might be inferred from a 

 superficial examination of the report. 



It means not that the voters have studied 

 the conditions of confusion which the priority 

 rule was instituted to clear up, and which 

 produce the present temporary state of which 

 there has been natural complaint; but that the 

 teachers (of whom the list of voters is ex- 

 clusively composed) are much annoyed by the 

 uncertainty incident to the period of transi- 

 tion. This is nothing new ; everybody has felt 

 it; it requires an almost Eoman firmness to 

 give up a familiar if erroneous name ; and the 

 wonder is that the vote was not unanimous. 

 Precisely the same state of mind is the cause 

 why we have not yet adopted the metric sys- 

 tem, and Eussia retains the old style in her 

 calendar. 



If the question had been put as to what 

 remedy should be had, other than continuing 

 the work of rectification as rapidly as possible, 

 it is likely there would have been as many 

 minds as there were voters. No teacher likes 

 to give a name to an organism before his 

 classes which he is not certain is up to date. 

 Moreover, some too clever pupil may discover 

 that Jordan, Merriam, Allen, Elliot, Gill, Eich- 



mond, and other master systematists reject 

 that name ; where then is our infallibility ? It 

 is a tearful situation. 



However, a complete remedy is at hand 

 which will harmonize all the disputants with- 

 out sacrificing accuracy or rejecting necessary 

 rules. 



It is well known that nearly all the verte- 

 brates have what are called " common " or 

 popular names. These have been carefully 

 preserved by the ornithologists in their check- 

 lists, for example. 



Now let the dear old familiar names of 

 each man's particular set of text-books be 

 given the status of " common names," distin- 

 guished by (say a plus sign before them) to 

 avoid confounding them with the real names, 

 and have it generally admitted that no odium 

 attaches to the use of a " common name " for 

 our invertebrates, any more than in ornithol- 

 ogy, and we have the whole problem solved. 

 Since only one in a million invertebrates has 

 a " common name " at present, no trouble 

 would ensue on that score. 



(I expect nothing less than a statue for this 

 discovery, from future generations of teach- 

 ers.) 



Wm. H. Dall 



Smithsonian Institution, 

 December 16, 1912 



THE staining OF PROTOZOA 



To THE Editor of Science: Hasmatoxylin 

 is, so to speak, the printer's ink of protozool- 

 ogists, for this stain is used by all workers in 

 studying the morphology of the cell, and it 

 has come into general use because it tells as 

 much as a single stain can of the essential 

 structures in the architecture of a cell. It is 

 true that various mordants alter, or rather 

 intensify the staining character of certain 

 parts of the nucleus. For example, when 

 " agamous " trophozoites of Entamoeba tetra- 

 gena are stained by alum hsematosylin, iron 

 hsematoxyliu, or phosphotungstic acid hsema- 

 toxylin, or if they are stained with Mal- 

 lory's phosphotungstic acid hasmatoxylin after 

 wet fixation by Merkel's and Zenker's fluids, 

 the different structures in the nucleus — 



