816 



SCIENCE 



[X. S. Vol. XXIX. No. 751 



recognizable; will they not in the end become 

 mere nomina nuda? 



Identity being the fundamental basis of 

 nomenclature, and intimately connected with 

 the end of systematic work itself, it seems ut- 

 terly absurd to ignore it or to give it but pass- 

 ing attention. Therefore immediate steps 

 should be taken to insure it. Instead of hav- 

 ing an international code of nomenclature 

 recommended to zoologists, to be followed at 

 their discretion, we have advanced far enough 

 to have one which should be enforced by legis- 

 lation of some such body as the International 

 Zoological Congress, no systematist being 

 recognized unless adhering rigidly to its 

 rulings. At first thought this step may ap- 

 pear to be visionary, as we can not by law con- 

 trol such intangible or incorporeal things as 

 the individual judgments of men concerning 

 what is or is^not a good description of a thing ; 

 nevertheless, we can prescribe, in cases of the 

 kind considered, what shall or shall not be 

 done in the future. Genera described without" 

 species can be rigidly barred ; genera described 

 without a description of the type species upon 

 which they are based can be treated likewise. 

 The authors of such genera could be repri- 

 manded or discountenanced, in a sense pro- 

 scribed. Further a date of departure for a 

 new system of nomenclature based on the fu- 

 ture should be designated, for the questions of 

 the past should be studiously avoided in the 

 future, and the new code should be conceived 

 in the spirit of the future, that is to say, in 

 the spirit of expansion, of progress. Such a 

 code, for instance, could provide for the future 

 cases coming under article 21 of the interna- 

 tional code, which should be framed along 

 lines tending to make descriptions infinite in 

 detail. For example, an indication should not 

 be allowed to hold for present-day or future 

 descriptions and some provision should be 

 made for the compulsory deposition of types 

 in accredited museums. I have mentioned but 

 one or two points which such a code should be 

 expected to cover; for its development and 

 adoption I can hope only; for these few sug- 

 gestions, I beg the consideration due to the 

 spirit in which they are offered. 



The end should always be in mind ; we must 



broaden our view-point; let us look to the fu- 

 ture, for properly the present belongs to it. 

 A. Arsene Girault 

 Univeesitt op Illinois, 

 March 1, 1909 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 The Origin of the Vertehrata. By Walter 



HoLBKOOK Gaskell. Longmans, Green & 



Co. 1908. 



Professor Gaskell during the past two de- 

 cades has published' an extended series of 

 papers which have aimed to convert morpholo- 

 gists to the view that vertebrates are de- 

 scended from arachnids. These papers, with 

 additions and corrections, are now brought 

 together in volume form. We suggest, how- 

 ever, the book's title " The Origin of the Ver- 

 tehrata " is chosen inaptly. It should have 

 read " The Supposed Arachnid Origin of the 

 Vertehrata," or, better, " A Plea for the Re- 

 jected Theory of the Origin of the Vertebrates 

 from Arachnids." For it is hardly fair that 

 the purchaser of this book should believe that 

 he has here a resume of our knowledge of the 

 ancestry of the vertebrates. He is given 

 merely a one-sided view of the whole intricate 

 problem. 



It is just to say that Gaskell has devoted 

 himself generously to the task which he has 

 sought to accomplish. His work shows that 

 he has been earnest and tireless, that his 

 reading has covered a field much wider than 

 that of the usual promoter of a lost cause — 

 that he is not one of those whose effort is 

 measured in terms of success, for he would 

 himself admit that even his friends (and he 

 has many sympathetic ones) in the wide zo- 

 ological fraternity, do not subscribe (there is 

 scarcely an exception) to a single tenet of his 

 heretical morphology. If he had been trained 

 as a morphologist instead of as a physiologist, 

 perhaps he himself would never have developed 

 his theory. 



There has been of late years a tendency to 

 ignore Gaskell's writings on the ground that 

 his arguments, having been weighed carefully, 

 have been found wanting. Then, too, we have 

 lost zest for discussing his difficult theses, e. g., 

 that the arachnid gut and nervous cord fused 



