i'EBRUABT 10, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



219 



4 



substantial evidence of so improbable an oc- 

 ■currenee as the breeding of the passenger 

 pigeon in arid southwestern Arizona before 

 they will be willing to accept these observa- 

 tions as a part of the history of a now prac- 

 tically extinct species. If specimens of the 

 birds in question had been obtained and iden- 

 tified by competent authority, it would doubt- 

 less have saved burdening the literature of the 

 ■wild pigeon with another questionable record, 

 and one that may prove extremely difficult to 

 eliminate. J. A. Allen 



ON THE TRANSFERENCE OP NAMES IN ZOOLOGY 



As the preparation of an official list of 

 •nomina conservanda is now under considera- 

 tion by the International Commission on Zo- 

 ological Nomenclature it may not be out of 

 place to call attention to a point that seems to 

 me of prime importance in this connection, 

 although it has received little notice from re- 

 cent writers on nomenelatorial reform. 



It is simply this — while the rejection and 

 replacement of familiar names for well-known 

 animals is, of course, an inconvenience to 

 zoologists, it is a trivial matter in compari- 

 son with the grave possibility of confusion 

 that arises when the names are used in an 

 altered sense. In the former case we merely 

 multiply synonyms, and, unfortunately, they 

 are so numerous already that a few more 

 hardly matter; in the latter case there is a 

 real and serious danger of ambiguity. Thus, 

 at present, a writer who mentions Trichechus 

 may be referring either to the Walrus or the 

 Manatee, Simia may mean either the Orang 

 or the Chimpanzee, Cynocephalus may be 

 either a " flying Lemur " or a Baboon, and so 

 on through all the great groups of the animal 

 kingdom till we come to Holothuria which 

 may refer either to a sea-cucumber or to a 

 Portuguese man-of-war. Cases like these 

 seem to me to be on an entirely different 

 plane, as regards practical importance, from 

 those in which an old name is simply re- 

 jected; even if the shore-crab is to be called 

 Carcinides for the future we have only the ad- 

 ditional burden of remembering that it was 

 once called Carcinus. 



A striking (if somewhat exceptional) in- 

 stance of the pitfalls that are in preparation 

 for future students is found in the section on 

 Crustacea in Bronn's Thierreich (Bd. V., 

 Abth. ii.). On p. 1056 there is an allusion 

 to " Astacus " and on the following page to 

 " Astacus (^Homarus)." In the bound vol- 

 ume (unless the part-wrappers have been kept 

 in place) there is nothing to show that a 

 change of authorship intervened between these 

 two pages and that, while the second 

 " Astacus " refers to the lobster, the first 

 indicates the crayfish. 



If the International Commission could be 

 persuaded to consider first those names that 

 are threatened with transference, before pro- 

 ceeding to deal with those that are merely in 

 danger of replacement, they would, I believe, 

 secure the support and cooperation of many 

 zoologists who have doubts as to the practica- 

 bility of the schemes lately put forward. 



W. T. Calman 

 British Museum (Natural History), 

 Cbomweio. Road, 

 London S. W., 

 January 23, 1911 



SGIENTIFW BOOKS 

 African Mimetic Butterflies. By H. Eltring- 



ham. Oxford, Clarendon Press. 1910. 



The remarkable resemblances often observed 

 between insects of different genera, families or 

 even orders, have long attracted the attention 

 of naturalists. In some, probably many, cases 

 the explanation may be found in parallel 

 variation, or similar conditions of life. Such 

 explanations do not go far into the heart of 

 the matter, but they are satisfying to those 

 who like to give a " reason " for everything. 

 Bates, who was so familiar with the insect- 

 fauna of the Amazons, hit upon a more spe- 

 cial " reason " for resemblances observed by 

 him. This was, in short, that certain species 

 which were edible simulated others which were 

 distasteful and so gained protection. The 

 subject was taken up by Wallace and other 

 naturalists, and soon a large body of evidence 

 was available, especially in relation to butter- 

 flies. It was proved to be a fact that certain 



