July 4, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



31 



on 'Botanical Nomenclature' in your issue of 

 May 9 (p. 749), and am gratified, of course, 

 by his approval of the suggestion that the 

 ■disposition of objectionable names or caco- 

 nyms be separated from the body of nomen- 

 clatorial legislation and left to a permanent 

 committee or academy. On the other hand, 1 

 greatly regret my failure to have made suffi- 

 ■cently plain the fundamental importance of 

 generic types as necessary to stability in the 

 nomenclature of genera.* Had this principle 

 been adequately presented Dr. Dall would 

 have realized that it is not provided for in any 

 existing legislation, botanical or zoological. 

 The most serious deficiency of botanical no- 

 menclature is therefore not avoidable by 

 'rules accepted by practically all zoologists,' 

 among whom there is in this respect quite as 

 much diversity of faith and practice as with 

 botanists. 



In the formulation of rules upon some of 

 the less important details the zoologists may 

 have made better progTess than their botanical 

 brethren, but the illustrations cited by Dr. 

 Dall seem rather unfortunately chosen. Ver- 

 nacular names, for example, are rejected by 

 all codes, that is, when they occur in non- 

 scientific writings, but both botanists and zo- 

 ologists from the pre-Linnseans to the present 

 generation have exercised the privilege of 

 adopting such names into scientific literature, 

 often in large numbers. Whether a name is 

 'vernacular' or 'scientific' has thus been al- 

 lowed to depend upon the nature of the pub- 

 lication rather than upon the origin of the 

 term, so that unless a new canon of criticism 

 can be formulated the nomenclatorial atroci- 

 ties of Hernandez cannot be excluded because 

 of their barbarian origin without disturbing 

 hundreds of commonly accepted designations 

 of both plants and animals. 



Dr. Dall declares that 'ninety-nine hun- 

 dredths' of our remaining tribulations would 

 disappear by the use of Linnaeus' 'Systema 

 Naturae,' Ed. X., as the starting point of no- 

 menclature, but unless it be the advantage of 

 following the zoologists he gives no intimation 



* Science, N. S. XV. : 646 ; references to pre- 

 vious discussions of the same subject are given 

 on page 656. 



of any reason why 1759 is a better date than 

 1753. As a matter of fact, the plants were 

 presented under the binomial system of no- 

 menclature five years before the animals, and 

 Linnseus but carried out with the animals in 

 1758 what he had accomplished with tho 

 plants in 1753. Botany had a far larger popu- 

 larity and a much greater and more rapid de- 

 velopment than zoology in the seventeenth and 

 eighteenth centuries, which may explain the 

 stronger attachment to mediaeval traditions 

 and the greater difficulties of botanical re- 

 forms, but this more persistent conservatism 

 will be beneficial if it compels us to master 

 the complex problems of taxonomy and pre- 

 vents too ready assent to such partial and in- 

 adequate readjustments as have found favor 

 among some zoologists. 



The historical development and dominant 

 traditions of the two sciences have been some- 

 what different, but nobody will seriously 

 maintain that there is any essential diver- 

 gence between the taxonomic requirements of 

 botany and those of zoology, and an adequate 

 solution discovered in the one science will not 

 be lightly neglected in the other. The so- 

 called Paris or DeCandollean code of 1867, to 

 which Dr. Dall also advises botanists to hark 

 back, was not copyrighted, and yet the zoolo- 

 gists did not adopt it, doubtless because they 

 thought themselves able to do better. Like 

 the supplementary Rochester code, it was an 

 important step in the right direction, but it 

 did not exhaust the possibilities of progress. 

 It was evidently prepared as an advisory or 

 preliminary document, and is quite lacking in 

 the logical arrangement and definite statement 

 requisite in nomenclatorial legislation. More- 

 over, it was based on pre-evolutionary concep- 

 tions of nature, and as a system of recording 

 the results of biological study it does not meet 

 our present necessities. 



O. F. Cook. 



Washington, June 10, 1902. 



COILED BASKETRY. 



Professor Mason's note under the above 

 heading in Science for May 30 is another 

 reminder that we know but little of the arts 

 of our eastern Indians at the period of their 



