December 29, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



871 



Texas, to Honolulu were doing well and in- 

 creasing rapidly. When liberated they im- 

 mediately began devouring the mosquito larvae. 

 The MoUienesia are viviparous and soon after 

 they were released many young were born. 

 At the latest report the minnows numbered 

 about 2,000. 



The first regular paper of the evening was 

 by Dr. E. L. Greene on ' Linnaeus as an Evolu- 

 tionist.' In the ' Philosophia Botanica ' it 

 was shown that Linnaeus had clearly expressed 

 his views that species were the same as when 

 created in the beginning and as they were to 

 remain for all time. In the later ' Species 

 Plantarum ' Dr. Greene was interested to find 

 a query as to whether a certain species were 

 not derived from another related species, and 

 on reading through the 1,600 pages of 

 this work he found numerous queries as to 

 whether one species of plant had not been 

 derived from some other species or acquired 

 certain characters by adaptation to environ- 

 ment — soil or climatic conditions. Thus 

 while in one place expressing an orthodox 

 belief in special creation, his later querying is 

 that of an advanced and pronounced evolu- 

 tionist. 



The second paper on the program was by Mr. 

 Frederick V. Coville, on ' The International 

 Botanical Congress at Vienna.' He said this 

 was one of a series held every five years. It 

 was attended by about 500 delegates, from the 

 United States and most European countries, 

 of which the German-Austrian group was 

 greatly in the majority. The morning ses- 

 sions of the meetings were devoted to presen- 

 tation of botanical papers, the afternoon ses- 

 sions to the adoption of a code of botanical 

 nomenclature. The main questions brought 

 up were: (1) The rejection of the Kew rule 

 by adopting the principle of retaining the 

 oldest specific name in whatever genus pub- 

 lished; (2) an exception to the retention of 

 the oldest specific name was made when it 

 was identical with the name of the genus; 

 (3) the American principle of rejecting ho- 

 monyms was not adopted; (4) the principle 

 of fixing upon a single • species as the type of 

 a genus was not accepted; (5) the principle 

 of binomialism as a requisite for the publica- 



tion of a genus was not adopted; (6) it was 

 voted that after January 1, 1908, new names 

 should not be valid unless accompanied by 

 Latin diagnoses. Unfortunately, no prelim- 

 inary meetings of the committee had been held 

 for discussion and perfection of the code, and 

 the proposals of the Americans to refer to 

 committees points to which there was a large 

 opposition was rejected. 



Dr. Stiles discussed several points in con- 

 nection with Mr. Coville's paper. Lie ex- 

 plained the organization of the international 

 commission on zoological nomenclature and 

 expressed the opinion that such organization 

 was superior to the plan followed by the bot- 

 anists, as the zoological plan not only provides 

 for any necessary changes, but guards against 

 any radical and unnecessary changes in no- 

 men clatural customs. Lie thought that when 

 zoological and botanical nomenclature were 

 declared as independent of each other a very 

 unfortunate mistake was committed, since 

 such a rule was made without consideration 

 of the numerous difficulties it would make for 

 men working in the protozoa. However, now 

 that the rule was generally adopted it was not 

 feasible to attempt to rescind the rule. The 

 zoological code provided, however, for certain 

 cases which arise. He was of the opinion 

 that the botanical provision that all new de- 

 scriptions should be written in Latin was an 

 unfortunate one and not capable of general 

 practical application. He maintained that 

 any man is able to write his own mother 

 tongue more clearly and more concisely than 

 he is able to express himself in a foreign 

 language; further, probably not fifty per cent, 

 of the men actively engaged in zoological and 

 botanical work are able to read Latin with 

 ease and certainly a smaller per cent, are able 

 to write Latin. The rule in question as 

 adopted by the botanists seemed to him not 

 only a step backwards but further it played 

 into a rather important local question in edu- 

 cational matters in certain countries and the 

 rule would doubtless be cited by scientists in 

 those countries in support of certain questions 

 and legislation which were of purely local 

 interest to those countries. It would further 

 result in decreasing the activity of a number 



