310 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1131 



ble name for the hapless salamanders to which 

 it, or Ambystoma, has been applied, is a sepa- 

 rate question. 



If the framer of the word which first ap- 

 peared as Ambystoma did not state the in- 

 tended formation or the intended meaning, 

 and if his description does not give a clue, it 

 was a case in which science, for once, made a 

 mistake — it left uncertain what it might have 

 made certain. 



One must guess, or reason out, what the 

 author meant. His hand wrote — what? His 

 printer printed Ambystoma. He printed it 

 four times, we are told; but the second, third 

 and fourth times may merely prove the metic- 

 ulous care of the printer to repeat the first 

 error, and thereby to secure that pleasing uni- 

 formity of error which is the undying passion 

 of that deserving tribe. (What the tribe de- 

 serves I will not here disclose.) 



Now, any scientific gentleman who thinks 

 that it is a proper plan to form, print or defend 

 a word Ambystoma, as a name for even the 

 humblest of God's creatures, ought to con- 

 sider whether he can " get across " with it. He 

 may, indeed, find champions among his learned 

 associates, especially among those to whom 

 a printed error in a scientific work, if made 

 early in the morning (I allude, of course, to 

 one aspect of the rule of priority), has a 

 Mohammedan or Shakespearian sacrosanctity ; 

 and some of these champions may try to sup- 

 port the error by daring flights into the clouds 

 of etymology; as, in this case, the attempt 

 mentioned by your correspondent, to support 

 Ambystoma by capturing as its source a Greek 

 phrase that is erroneous in itself, is non- 

 existent (except in the clouds), and could not 

 without violence be persuaded to assist in 

 forming such a word. 



The fact that this imagined Greek phrase is 

 in Science printed with one- error in each of 

 its three words, exonerates the printer from 

 the censure of Mohammedan superstition. If 

 I were to repeat the phrase here, he would be 

 quite willing, I am sure, to oblige us with 

 other variations. The printer of Tschudi was 

 more rigid : " What I say four times is true." 



But supposing that Ambystoma does not 



mean anything, what of it ? Are we not often 

 told that a name in zoology need not mean 

 anything — that it may be a mere label, like a 

 number ? 



This answer, however, does not meet the 

 point. Names that seem to be formed from 

 the Latin or Greek vocabulary in the usual 

 manner will for ever be compared with their 

 apparent sources; and anomalous names like 

 Ambystoma or Liopa or Fedoa will for ever be 

 challenged by scholars; and no agreement by 

 a committee to take the first form found in 

 print, or to acquiesce in de-facto fictions, will 

 settle the question or the questioning. Amby- 

 stoma, so printed, seems to be intended for a 

 word of the usual Latin and Greek vocabulary ; 

 but it means nothing, and it looks as if it were 

 an error for Amblystoma; and to that form 

 Agassiz corrected it. 



I will not dwell upon the fact that Ambly- 

 stoma, though a deliberately corrected form, is 

 itself, considered as a neuter noun requiring 

 a neuter specific adjective (Amblystoma macu- 

 latum), etymologically incorrect. But this 

 point has been ignored in the framing of many 

 New Latin names : and to consider it here were 

 perhaps to consider it too curiously. Never- 

 theless, a fact ignored is still a fact there. 



Ambystoma, then, it seems, has no right ex- 

 cept the right of having started wrong. But 

 the right of having started wrong is a right 

 which the world is much disposed to admit. 

 This is the case with many respectable sects 

 and parties that have continued long upon the 

 wrong road, and now obey at eve the erring 

 voice which they obeyed at prime; or hold 

 extra conventions to ascertain their principles. 

 Whatever was, is right. Personally and scien- 

 tifically, I do not believe this; but it is evi- 

 dent that many persons find a satisfaction in 

 dogmas of literature and zoology, and in names 

 and forms of words, that arose in former 

 times. The glamour is in the preterition. 

 These things were. That is something. The 

 past, at least, is secure. Such things have a 

 history ; and they are at any rate free from the 

 vice of being up to date. 



It should be noted that the difference be- 

 tween Ambystoma and Amblystoma is not, 



