436 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVI. No. 927 



with methods of its own wholly separate from 

 those of anatomy, embryology and histology. 

 We have found, by weary experience, that 

 either the use of names must be governed by 

 rule, or else each man may call anything what- 

 ever he pleases. The latter has been done too 

 long. We have been for eighty years making 

 progress toward order, and the Zoological 

 Commission has done fairly well in bringing 

 the variant points of view of actual workers in 

 taxonomy into practical harmony. Compro- 

 mises have been necessary, but we must re- 

 member that no compromise not founded in 

 the nature of things will be respected by fu- 

 ture workers. The shield of high authority of 

 men like Cuvier has not sufficed to cover his 

 lapses of failure to recognize the work of 

 earlier but less favored authors. Investiga- 

 tors who deal with a few common species may 

 use as vernacular names words like Amphi- 

 oxus, Bdellostoma and the like, not sanctioned 

 by priority, but there is no line which taxon- 

 omists can draw which should retain these 

 names invalidated under the law of priority, 

 while retaining order in the other parts of the 

 taxonomic system. 



The chief real confusion centers about the 

 need to restrict to a definite type the wide-rang- 

 ing, ill-defined, incoherent groups of some of 

 the earlier systematists. The genera of Lin- 

 nseus correspond in general to the families of 

 to-day, while in very many eases, the same 

 species, under other names, appears in two or 

 more different genera. 



To limit these genera we have in general two 

 methods. One is to settle the matter on the 

 basis of the words of the original author. If 

 he designates no type, let the first species he 

 names under a genus stand as type. This 

 method has the tremendous advantage of abso- 

 lute fixity. It would involve a few dozen 

 changes from current nomenclature, but it 

 would stand once for all. Some writers still 

 adhere to it, through thick and thin. 



The other method allows the author who 

 deals next with the genus to fix its type. The 

 first one who does so completes the genus and 

 fastens it once for all on some definite species. 

 This method makes necessary much biblio- 

 graphic research, otherwise unprofitable, and 



as many writers have no clear conception of 

 generic type, it is often not certain whether 

 such have fixed the type or not. 



A third method, that of elimination, by 

 which the type is fixed of a genus for the 

 species which remains after the others have 

 been removed has never been defined and is 

 not practicable. The second method, as a 

 compromise between the first and third, was 

 adopted at the Boston meeting of the Zo- 

 ological Congress in 1909. If it fails, taxon- 

 omists will have no recourse but to fall 

 back into two mutually criticizing camps: 

 those who fix a genus absolutely to the first 

 species named, and those who fix it where they 

 please, according to their treatment of the 

 exigencies of elimination. 



The present writer believes that the first 

 species rule would have been best, but as it 

 can not secure a majority vote of taxonomists, 

 he favors the second rule adopted unanimously 

 at Boston. Non-taxonomists have no rights 

 in this matter. We might as well ask them to 

 make their cells visible to the naked eye, lay- 

 ing aside their technique, as for them to ask 

 for the abolition of the technique of taxonom- 

 ists. To submit to rules of nomenclature " to 

 the plenum of the congress to vote," is to de- 

 stroy all possibility of taxonomic technique. 

 The botanists have already furnished the 

 awful example. Eules which no investigator 

 can or will follow or which may be set aside 

 in the interest of choice or convenience do 

 not contribute to the fixity of nomenclature. 



As to the specific propositions quoted by 

 Dr. Kingsley: 



1. To exempt a list of names " in common 

 use before 1900 " or " employed in instruc- 

 tion." 



It is hard to see by what authority this can 

 be done and the list made permanent. Tak- 

 ing individual cases : Echidna is the name of 

 a large and widely distributed genus of eels 

 as well of the Australian spiny monotreme, the 

 eel-name having been in use 140 years. Why 

 should the ichthyologist give it up? As to 

 Amia, it is a pity that Linnaeus chose that 

 name for the ganoid bowfin when Gronow had 

 used it five years before for a perch-like fish. 

 Personally I preferred to reject all Gronow's 



