490 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVIII. No. 719 



The author has, in a number of cases, with- 

 out any apparent reason given the older freez- 

 ing-point diagrams of Gautier, and Eoland- 

 Gosselin along with the more correctly estab- 

 lished diagrams of later workers. This 

 arrangement occupies space at the expense of 

 clearness. The placing of the diagram on the 

 page might also have been done to better ad- 

 vantage. As an example, on page 110 the 

 copper-nickel diagram is given under the 

 paragraph heading silver-zinc, and the dia- 

 gram for this pair of metals is given on the 

 following page under copper-tin. 



In the explanation of those diagrams in 

 which a concealed maximum exists, the 

 changes in concentration are not clearly fol- 

 lowed and in at least one case inaccurately 

 given. 



The chapter on iron-carbon alloys is clear, 

 concise and well illustrated with excellent re- 

 productions of photomicrographs. 



Henry Pay 



SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES 

 The contents of Terrestrial Magnetism and 

 Atmospheric Electricity for September are: 

 " Pocket Compass Sun-Dial of 1451 " (frontis- 

 piece) ; " The Earliest Values of the Magnetic 

 Declination," by L. A. Bauer; "On the Dis- 

 tribution of Magnetism over the Earth's Sur- 

 face," by P. T. Passalskij, translated by Paul 

 Wernicke ; " Eeport on the Atmospheric Elec- 

 tricity Observations made on the Magnetic 

 Survey Yacht, Galilee, 1907-8," by P. H. 

 Dike; Letters to Editor; Notes; Abstracts and 

 Eeviews; List of Keeent Publications. 



TEE RULE OF PRIORITY IN ZOOLOGICAL 

 NOMENCLATURE '■ 

 Disapproval was expressed of the extreme 

 application of the rule of priority, which in 

 the author's opinion had brought about much 

 mischief under pretence of aiming at ultimate 

 uniformity. The author protested against the 

 abuse to which this otherwise excellent rule 



^Abstract of a paper by G. A. Boulenger, F.R.S., 

 presented at the Dublin meeting of the British 

 Association. 



had been put by some recent workers, encour- 

 aged as they were by the decision of several 

 committees who had undertaken to revise the 

 Stricklandian Code, elaborated under the 

 auspices of the British Association in 1842. 

 The worst feature of this abuse is not so much 

 the bestowal of unknown names on well- 

 known creatures as the transfer of names 

 from one to another, as we have seen in the 

 case of Astacus, Torpedo, Holothuria, Simia, 

 Cynocephalus, and many others which must 

 be present to the mind of every systematist. 



The names that were used uniformly by 

 Cuvier, Johannes Miiller, Owen, Agassiz, 

 Darwin, Huxley, Gegenbaur, would no longer 

 convey any meaning, very often they would 

 be misunderstood; in fact the very object for 

 which Latin or Latinized names were intro- 

 duced would be defeated. It is all very well 

 to talk of uniformity in the future, but surely 

 we must have some consideration for the past. 

 Names with which all general zoologists anat- 

 omists and physiologists are familiar should 

 be respected, should be excepted from the rule 

 in virtue of what may be termed the privilege 

 prescription. 



If biologists would agree to make that one 

 exception to the law of priority in nomencla- 

 ture things would adjust themselves well 

 enough, and we might hope to see realized 

 some day what we all desire, fixity in names, 

 that we may readily understand the meaning 

 of all writers, not only over the whole civilized 

 world, at the present day and in the future, but 

 back into the last century, which has marked so 

 great an advance in zoological science. Such 

 a result would be attained by protecting time- 

 honored names of well-known animals from 

 the attacks of the revisers of nomenclature. 

 For this purpose future committees that may 

 be convened to discuss these topics might 

 confer a real and lasting benefit on zoology by 

 determining group by group, which names are 

 entitled to respect, not, of course, on the 

 ground of their earliest date or their correct 

 application in the past, but as having been 

 universally used in a definite sense. 



This suggestion is not a new one. As far 

 back as 1896, in a discussion which took place 

 at the Zoological Society of London, Sir Eay 



