420 



8GIENGE 



IN. S. Vol. XXIX. No. 741 



THE NAMING OF NEW SPECIES 



To THE Editor of Science : The volume of 

 Proceedings of the United States National 

 Museum for 1908 has just come to hand with 

 its usual wealth of zoological literature, much 

 of which is naturally of a systematic char- 

 acter. As I have looked through the various 

 articles, and have noted the large number of 

 new species described, I have been struck by 

 the very considerable proportion of names 

 given " in honor of " somebody, or derived 

 from a geographical or geological locality. 

 In other words, the percentage of specific 

 names which are in any sense descriptive or 

 suggestive to a fellow-worker in the same 

 group, is very small, and I am therefore moved 

 to call the attention of systematic zoologists 

 (including, of course, the paleontologists) to 

 what seems to me a very unfortunate tendency 

 among us. The naming of an animal " in 

 honor of " some one has much to recommend 

 it from the personal point of view, if we agree 

 not to debate the question whether it is an 

 honor to have a parasitic worm, a skunk or 

 some other unlovable creature named in one's 

 honor. But from the scientific point of view, 

 the custom of using personal names for the 

 designation of particular animals has little to 

 commend it, except possibly where the name 

 of some preeminently great master of a field 

 may be perpetuated in connection with the 

 group upon which he worked; something may 

 be said in favor of darwini as the name of a 

 cirriped. The use of names derived from lo- 

 calities or geological horizons has more to 

 recommend it, for such names may be, and 

 often are, suggestive and distinctive. But 

 they are very apt to be shown, by further ad- 

 vances of knowledge, to be not only inap- 

 plicable, but oftentimes misleading, and they 

 should only be used where there is little 

 chance for blunders. It seems to me a great 

 pity that we can not return to the original 

 idea for a specific name, that it should be in 

 some sense descriptive. Of course it must be 

 admitted that many names of this class are 

 very misleading, but that fact should only 

 make .us more careful in the selection of the 

 names we give. Many zoologists do not real- 



ize what the situation really is and I there- 

 fore wish to give an analysis of the papers in 

 the volume of Proceedings before me. 



There are 30 articles in which new species 

 are described, 24 of which deal wholly with 

 recent, and 6 with fossil, species. In the 

 thirty articles 223 new names are proposed 

 for species, besides a number of varieties and 

 subspecies which I have left out of the ac- 

 count. Of the 223 names, 130, or 58 per 

 cent., are in some degree descriptive; 47, or 

 21 per cent., are names of persons; 45, or 

 nearly 21 per cent., are locality names, and 1 

 is of doubtful significance. 



Of course the 130 names are not all equally 

 descriptive, some are very doubtfully so. 

 The 45 locality names include names derived 

 from geological horizons. The 47 names of 

 persons include 40 individuals, one of whom 

 is honored (?) no less than three times. 

 When it is realized that this honor (?) ia 

 sometimes actually asked for, directly or in- 

 directly, it may be seen how very dubious it 

 is. Of the forty individuals, I can count but 

 nine whose scientific attainments can fairly 

 be said to warrant their being chosen; others, 

 of course, would differ from me in the count, 

 but I think no one would find twenty. 



Among the thirty papers, some are notably 

 free from the evils I am pointing out. Mr. 

 A. H. Clark's papers on Crinoids include 29 

 names, of which at least 86 per cent, are 

 descriptive (the derivation of homachi is be- 

 yond me, so I have not called it descriptive) 

 and Mr. William Warren's paper on geometrid 

 moths includes 34 names of which 94 per cent, 

 are descriptive. Deducting these papers, we 

 find that of 160 names, 73, or less than 46 per 

 cent., are descriptive; 43, or 27 per cent., are 

 personal, and 44, or more than 27 per cent., 

 are locality names. 



But Professor Nutting's report on Hawaiian 

 Alcyonaria includes 38 names, of which 

 nearly 7Y per cent, are descriptive (8 are 

 personal), and if we deduct these names, we 

 find that of the remaining 122 names, 44, or 

 only 36 per cent., are descriptive; 35, or 28 J 

 per cent., are personal, and 43, or 35J per 

 cent., are locality names. 



