May 23, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



789 



should do for scientific names what the stand- 

 ard dictionaries do for words in general, 

 namely, embody and fix as accurately as pos- 

 sible the current usage and significance of 

 the word. That is what the proposal for an 

 ofiicial list of scientific names amounts to, if 

 carried out to the limit of its apparent trend. 

 It would no doubt substitute references to 

 types or descriptions for the dictionary defi- 

 nitions of meanings; but that is unessential. 



The real objections to such a plan, as it 

 seems to me, are (1) that the law of priority 

 is so thoroughly imbedded in the mind of most 

 systematists, and regarded so much as a moral 

 or legal issue, a matter of justice to the first 

 describer or of correct interpretation of cer- 

 tain statutory rules, rather than as a matter 

 of convenience, that the authorities in system- 

 atic work would not abide by dictionary 

 usage in the matter. (2) That any extensive 

 list that could be prepared would certainly 

 contain many names that were open to ex- 

 ception because the references or types so 

 standardized were inadequate, or the current 

 usage not approximately universal. 



The first objection is illustrated by Dr. 

 Ball's contemptuous rejection of the proposi- 

 tion that proposals approved by the majority 

 of the committee on nomenclature should be 

 submitted for endorsement or rejection to the 

 body of the Zoological Congress. He will not 

 abide by majority rule in the matter, even a 

 majority of a committee of experts; and for a 

 majority decision of " five dollaa- subscribers " 

 he has no respect at all. The second objection 

 is one that would be of special weight in any 

 attempt to standardize the nomenclature of 

 vertebrate paleontology. 



But it has been said : If the systematists 

 will not conform, let them go their way, and 

 the rest of us go ours. To such a remark one 

 can only say: Try to put such a scheme in the 

 form of a definite program and see where it 

 would land you. The scientific body is an 

 organic whole interacting in all its parts, and 

 -iEsop's fable of the belly and the members is 

 very much apropos. Altogether it would seem 

 that the present methods and usages, annoying 

 and exasperating as they often are to the 



teacher and morphologist, wasteful and time- 

 consuming to the systematist, can not be modi- 

 fied to any material extent without causing 

 further confusion. 



The systematists are in the habit of assuring 

 us that this confusion is only temporary; that 

 when the laws of priority have been correctly 

 and exactly applied to all species and genera, 

 a stable and unchanging nomenclature will re- 

 sult; there will be no further changes. So far 

 as vertebrate paleontology is concerned, I am 

 certain that this optimism is unjustified and I 

 doubt whether it is so in other branches of 

 zoology. After the nomenclature has been re- 

 vised it will be stable until somebody revises 

 it again, just so long and no longer. Every 

 new reviser, having new evidence at hand, or 

 stressing differently the data already con- 

 sidered, is liable to interpret the case differ- 

 ently, and each difference in the interpreta- 

 tion of some obscure or minor point is liable 

 to result in a whole series of alterations of 

 well-known and important names. Only by for- 

 bidding the re-investigation of cases already 

 authoritatively considered can changes be pre- 

 vented. And that is just what Professor 

 Ward's committee wants to do, and Dr. Dall 

 makes it clear that systematists of the high- 

 est standing would not accept any such ruling. 

 The plain fact of the case is that scientific 

 nomenclature has come to a pass where the 

 common name of a species is the only name 

 with any permanency or prospects of perma- 

 nency, and it is necessary to use it or to pro- 

 vide one if there is none already, in order that 

 one's readers — aye, even other systematists — 

 shall know what animal is under discussion. 

 A century ago scientific writers wrote descrip- 

 tions in dog-latin and then explained in good 

 English or other modern langTiages what they 

 were talking about. To-day they write de- 

 scriptions under a scientific name dug out of 

 some old forgotten treatise, and provide it 

 with a wealth of learned synonymy, and then 

 explain by means of the " dear old familiar 

 name of the text-books " or the still dearer 

 vernacular name, what animal it is that they 

 are describing. Fashions change; not always 

 in the way of progress. 



