Septembee 2, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



297 



they were fitted to the mental mechaniam of 

 the race. Had they been huilt, as multisyl- 

 labic heterozygous names are now built, with- 

 out regard to the limitations of the human 

 mind, it is safe to say that no Linneean sys- 

 tem would ever have come down to us. 



But the Linnaan system was better suited 

 to Linnasus's day than to ours. It provided 

 for the recording of progress in systematic 

 knowledge only by means of a proportionate 

 growth in terminology. It could remain 

 simple only while the known organisms were 

 comparatively few. It was inevitable that 

 such a system of names, having no check to 

 overgrowth, should, with the rapid progress 

 in knowledge of the world's fauna and ilora, 

 sooner or later be in danger of falling of its 

 own weight. It was inevitable that the new 

 names proposed should grow ever more com- 

 plex and difficult to handle. Specific names, 

 although often without fitness or significance' 

 have, for the most part, remained simple. 

 The cumbersomeness of generic and family 

 names is due in part to the codes, but in a 

 far larger part to the growth of systematic 

 knowledge. The supply of classic names was 

 not adequate for Linnaeus' use. And with the 

 multiplication of genera it has been increas- 

 ingly harder to find brief, simple names, and 

 far easier to create them by transposing and 

 compounding. Wherefore, let us not lament 

 that the burden of terminology, in so far as 

 it represents the increase of knowledge, has 

 grown heavier, but let us rather seek for im- 

 proved means of carrying it. Were it not 

 better to spend a little less energy in estab- 

 lishing priority in a system that is old and 



'In this Year of Grace 1910 Mr. N. Banks pub- 

 lishes (in Psyche for June) descriptions of six 

 new species of Australian lacewing flies belonging 

 in the genvis Chrysopa under the following names : 

 C. olatatis, C. latotalis, G. satilota, 

 C. italotis, C. atalotU, C. otalatis. 

 These names are perfectly admissible under the 

 rules, and are as good as any others under the 

 interpretation that "A name is a name, and not 

 a definition." But when students of the Aus- 

 tralian fauna have dissociated and assimilated 

 the six, they will doubtless remember Mr. Banks. 



cumbrous and overgrown, and a little more 

 in adjusting that system to the conditions of 

 the present and the future, making it more 

 simple, more concise, or at least more man- 

 ageable? Sometimes, when our clothing gets 

 too heavy for comfort, we leave some of it off. 

 May it not be that the organism we know as a 

 zoological congress is sufficiently adaptable 

 to conditions to rise and do likewise? 



After long consideration of this matter, and 

 with much hesitancy, I oiier the suggestion 

 that we adopt large groups, as comprehensive 

 as the genera of Linnaeus, or as the most mod- 

 ern subfamilies, and designate them by fit 

 names, and that we designate subgenera, 

 species and varieties by a simple combination 

 of letters and figures : and that we enter these 

 designations of the lesser groups after the 

 group name in their numerical or alphabetic 

 sequence, and in their historic order — the 

 order in which the descriptions were pub- 

 lished. I think I can show that with fewer 

 names than Linnaeus used and with designa- 

 tions for species that shall not exceed three 

 places, we can handle comfortably all known 

 forms of life and then go on unencumbered, 

 describing and classifying to our hearts' con- 

 tent. 



Let me illustrate the plan by a concrete 

 example. The subfamily Lestinae of Odonata 

 is a homogeneous group of dragonflies, readily 

 distinguishable by any one. The members of 

 this group long reposed under the generic 

 name Lesies, and it would be convenient for 

 all of us if they were so named still. They now 

 bear the names Sympycna, Archilestes, Mega- 

 lestes, etc., and although any one might know 

 and remember Lestes, no one but a specialist 

 in the group could afford to remember all 

 these. Under the system here proposed they 

 would all again bear the name Lestes (as 

 would all the additional members of the group 

 that the future might bring to light). The 

 species first described would be Lestes 1; the 

 next described, Lestes 2; nothing more, pro- 

 vided they have not in the past been sepa- 

 rated from Lestes. But in order to preserve 

 fully the results of systematic progress, it is 



