372 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIII. No. 845 



themselves. Slips in numbers can not do so. 



But waiving all this, the plan seems 

 Utopian. Let us look at its application to the 

 group of fishes. There are about 12,500 knovm 

 species of fishes, arranged in about 2,500 

 genera. Over 4,000 genera have been named 

 and upwards of 30,000 to 40,000 species. Of 

 these names, perhaps 10,000 are known to be 

 synonyms, the result of some one's misfor- 

 tune or carelessness. The majority of the 

 supposed species have not been tested. The 

 seas are large, there are many rivers, and but 

 few men who study these animals thoroughly. 

 In our system of numbers shall we count real 

 species or merely count names? Manifestly it 

 is only the names which we can use, for we do 

 not know half the species well enough to as- 

 sign them a final place. Again, shall we num- 

 ber all species of fishes from 1 to 40,000 — or 

 shall we number them by groups or by genera ? 

 In any case, a single man or bureau must do 

 all the numbering for all the world, else we 

 should have a crossing of numbers. I might 

 use 38,927 for my cat-fish, while my Russian 

 friend might claim it for a sturgeon. If we 

 number by genera, my Ameiurus 36 may not 

 be the same as my friend's Ameiurus 36 issued 

 at about the same time. Or one or the other 

 might make an error, or misprint, duplicating 

 what is already numbered. 



We must then have in each group a central 

 numbering bureau, a bureau which shall have 

 the means to go back and number all the for- 

 gotten species already in literature. We 

 would have to do this before the work could 

 begin. Our American channel cat, Ictalurus 

 punctatus, has received some 27 specific names 

 after it was called Silurus -punctatus. To do 

 it justice, we must refer to it as Ictalurus, 5, 

 27, 36, 38, etc., thus including the whole list 

 of synonyms, any one of which some one some 

 time may show to be valid. But the channel 

 cat was not originally called Ictalurus. This 

 raises the question as to whether you would 

 list it as Silurus, which it is not, or as Icta- 

 lurus, which it is, or as Ameiurus, Elliops, 

 Synechoglanis, Pimelodus or other generic 

 names under which synonyms its species have 

 been recorded. 



Manifestly they must be listed under the 

 original generic name, for no one yet knows 

 the final boundaries of the modem genus. 

 The modern genus consists of a group of 

 species clustering round its original type. 

 The boundaries between Ictalurus, the channel 

 cat, and Ameiurus, the ordinary cat fish, are 

 still uncertain. There are species intermedi- 

 ate, with the head of Ameiurus and the tail of 

 Ictalurus, and it may be that the two must 

 coalesce. So the same channel cat may be 

 Silurus 25, Ameiurus 29, Pimelodus 75, 

 Synechoglanis 1. Under the law of priority, 

 it can have but one right name. This is punc- 

 tatus, the oldest specific name attached to its 

 right genus, which, as we now understand it, is 

 Ictalurus. 



But let us start the numbering and see 

 where we come out. Shall we begin with the 

 lowest fish or with the fish first made known? 

 Our system of nomenclature begins on Jan- 

 uary 1, 1758. The first fish named is the 

 common lamprey, Petromyzon marinus. 

 Petromyzon offers no difficulty, except that 

 according to Linnseus, Petromyzon is not a 

 fish, but an amphibian. His Amphibia nantes, 

 or swimming amphibians, in his mind are not 

 real fishes. 



Passing on to the first species actually 

 called a fish by LinnaBus, Murwna helena, the 

 European moray, we have then Murwna 1. 

 But this Linnjeus helena obviously is not a 

 species. It is a compound of what is now 

 called Murwna helena, identifiable from its 

 use at the suppers in honor of Helen in Rome, 

 to which LinnEeus refers, and of two other 

 species, one of the old world, one American. 

 Murwna 1, therefore includes Murwna 50 

 ( — Gymnothorax moringa) and Murwna 90 

 (polyzonia) . But we will use the name helena 

 for the Roman moray Murwna. Murwna 2 

 (ophis) is — no one can tell what — a species of 

 Ophichthus, and Murwna 3 {serpens') is the 

 type of the later genus called Ophisurus or 

 Oxystomus. It has very little in common with 

 the morays. Have we gained much by substi- 

 tuting Murwna 1, Murwna 2 and Murwna 3, 

 for Murwna helena, Ophichthus ophis and 

 Ophisurus serpens? 



