April 25 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



649 



NOMENCLATURE APART FROM CLASSIFICA- 

 TION. 



Another of the many sources of confu- 

 sion attending literary methods of dealing 

 with systematic writings appears in con- 

 nection with the citation of authors of ge- 

 neric names. After the abandonment of the 

 practice of renaming each newly adjusted 

 concept it became customary to refer ge- 

 neric names, not to their original authors, 

 but to those who had made the last or most 

 improved emendation of the definition. 

 "With such excellent opportunities some 

 biological highwaymen did not hesitate to 

 appropriate for themselves the entire no- 

 menclature of their specialties, and evident- 

 ly thought that by introducing changes in 

 the generic descriptions they would estab- 

 lish claims to permanent recognition. Ad- 



haa been largely used, even in systematic writings, 

 in a phylogenetio rather than in a nomenolatorial 

 sense. 



The relief afforded by this amendment is more- 

 over very slight, as shown in a subsequent paper 

 which undertakes the actual work of 'A Revision 

 of the Genera of the Araneae or Spiders with 

 reference to their Type Species' {ibid., 7, ser. IX., 

 p. 5, Jan., 1902), and the essential instability of 

 the process of securing types through elimination 

 and 'implication' is recognized and frankly ad- 

 mitted. 



"Of course an author has a perfect right to 

 include any species he likes, and must face the 

 consequences if the last species left in his group 

 by subsequent withdrawals turns out to be con- 

 generic with the type of some earlier genus, 

 whereby he loses his name as a synonym. The 

 process * * * leads to great confusion, for it 

 may afterward be urged * * * that the species 

 removed was not congeneric with the earlier 

 genus * * * By this renewed claim * * * the 

 equilibrium is upset all along the line, and down 

 come a score perhaps of generic ninepins whose 

 stability depended upon the validity of this first 

 step. It is not possible of course to avoid this 

 tragedy of the ninepins so well known to and so 

 justly feared by everyone who has endeavored to 

 fix genera upon solid ground * * * there is 

 always the possibility that it may turn out that 

 the two species were after all not identical, and 



hereuce to the idea that a genus is a group 

 of species, and not merely a concept, and 

 that the generic name is to be attached to 

 a species rather than to a definition, affords 

 an effective remedy for all difficulties aris- 

 ing from emendations, pro parte refer- 

 ences and similar complications. The ge- 

 neric name when firmly anchored to a type 

 species is no longer affected by vicissitudes 

 of opinion among systematists, and in an 

 important practical sense the problems of 

 nomenclature are made to stand apart 

 from those of classification and expres- 

 sion. 



Groups recognized as genera by some 

 authors will not be so treated by others, 

 but genera, however constituted, will uni- 

 formly bear the oldest name which was 

 first applied to any of their component spe- 



down come several ninepins, and the whole posi- 

 tion has to be reconsidered. We have thus to 

 recognize and face this possibility. What we 

 want to do however is to avoid as much as pos- 

 sible any steps of elimination which might court 

 such a catastrophe." 



As an example the genus Neriene is cited, 

 which would become a synonym of Linyphia if, 

 as some think, the last species, N. marginata, 

 is congeneric with the type of that genus. Those 

 who hold this view would however maintain that 

 l^eriene coniuia shovild serve as the type and 

 would thus unseat the name Dicyphus, in which 

 alternations ' other subsequent genera will be in- 

 volved, and so on to distraction.' 



That this condition is not chronic among sys- 

 tematists who defend the method of elimination 

 is due to the fact that they use it with 'dis- 

 cretion,' as an eminent zoologist once informed 

 me, and do not attempt any general or constant 

 application of it to such a task as Mr. Cambridge 

 has undertaken. Those who prefer their ninepins 

 under the guise of nomenclature have but to hold 

 fast to the beautifully absurd rule quoted with 

 approval by both Messrs. Dahl and Cambridge. 



"The first publication in which a genus is sub- 

 divided, whether justifiably or unjustifiably, 

 whether in a conscious or unconscious manner, 

 must, where no typical form was named, decide 

 what portion of the original genus is to retain 

 the original name." 



