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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLII. No. 1075 



and Bence to commit in their own works the 

 offenses that they find fault with in the works 

 of other authors. They should sometimes en- 

 deavor to look upon their subject from the 

 point of view of the general zoologist, and get 

 a more correct perspective of the relative im- 

 portance of characters than can be obtained if 

 their ideas run too much within the narrow 

 limits to which the study of restricted groups 

 tends to confine them. If specialists will take 

 the lead in reducing to subgenera or sections 

 many of the genera now recognized, other 

 zoologists will be only too glad to follow them. 

 Such a course would not for a moment require 

 the abandonment of those genera as divisions 

 of classification, nor necessarily indicate the 

 admission of any change of view as to their 

 intrinsic importance; it would be merely a 

 question to be decided on the basis of obtain- 

 ing a nomenclature practical for zoologists in 

 general. As it is now, our nomenclature is 

 adapted for specialists only, and for each spe- 

 cialist only for his own particular field of 

 study. As far as the rest of the animal king- 

 dom is concerned, he is in the same position 

 as a general student of zoology, and finds the 

 existing nomenclature as inconvenient as 

 every one else does. 



One common practise seems to be especially 

 illogical. That is the attempt to break up well- 

 defined genera simply because they contain a 

 large number of species. Such genera exist in 

 nature, as well as many genera with a few or 

 with but one species, and this must be the 

 case in our classification also if it is to be 

 true to nature. It is claimed that large genera 

 are " inconvenient," but in such cases the in- 

 convenience is not in the classification, but in 

 nature itself, which has evolved a large assem- 

 blage of closely allied forms, and it is often 

 made worse rather than better by the attempt 

 to distinguish genera which have no real 

 dividing limits. 



The writer is inclined to question whether 

 Dr. Sumner has gone quite far enough in rec- 

 ommending subgenera as substitutes for many 

 of our present genera. Some of the latter 

 hardly deserve even that low rank. A sub- 

 genus receives a scientific name of the same 



form as a genus name, and affords a standing 

 temptation for the next specialist who makes 

 a more minute division, to treat it as a genus, 

 thereby changing the scientific names of all the 

 species involved. Even if this never happens, 

 scientific literature is burdened with a new 

 technical name which adds its weight to the 

 already excessively large proportion of zoo- 

 logical subject-matter which consists of mere 

 names of things, in distinction to real knowl- 

 edge about animals. Names and technical 

 words we must have, but whether we do it 

 consciously or not, we use mental energy in 

 learning and remembering and using them, or 

 in looking them up in books. If neither neces- 

 sity nor frequent and general usefulness justi- 

 fies their existence they should be done away 

 with, or, better still, never coined. The best 

 carpenter or machinist neither needs nor desires 

 the largest possible set of tools, and hesitates to 

 encumber himself with extra ones which he 

 has no real need of, and science would prob- 

 ably be as well off with fewer technical words. 



A method that has often been used and 

 proved a satisfactory one for naming unim- 

 portant groups is that of designating them by 

 their best known or first described species. 

 Such a system has been applied to the minor 

 divisions of large genera, as Unio, by Simpson 

 in his well-known synopsis of the Naiades, 

 where he speaks of the " group of Unio gib- 

 liosus," " the group of Unio littoralis," etc. 

 Not only are no new words coined, but to those 

 with some familiarity with the genera in ques- 

 tion the groups are better understood than if 

 they were called by some arbitrarily formed 

 and no less arbitrarily applied combinations 

 of Greek or Latin roots and suffixes. Simpson 

 used this method only for assemblages of very 

 nearly allied species, but it might well be ex- 

 tended to many groups now treated as genera 

 or subgenera. 



If instead of coining new technical words, 

 simple and logically formed combinations of 

 more or less familiar ones were more generally 

 employed, we would be saved the necessity of 

 learning and remembering, looking up and ex- 

 plaining hundreds if not thousands of need- 

 less words and names, and have a correspond- 



