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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVIII. No. 966 



circumstaiices the commission Tvill consider the 

 names in question as stillborn unless evidence is 

 presented that the premises now before the com- 

 mission are erroneous; further, the commission 

 suggests to authors that they cooperate in the 

 work by either correcting the premises before the 

 commission or by discontinuing to use the names. 

 The "To be rejected" list consists thus far of 

 430 generic names, distributed as follows: Trema- 

 toda, 22; Nematoda, 40; Gordiaeea, 1; Acantho- 

 cephala, 2; Diptera, 92; Mammalia, 273. 



(29) Many other names, supposedly valid or 

 supposedly unavailable, are still under considera- 

 tion either by the commission or by the several 

 special subcommittees, but no further work in this 

 line is contemplated unless the present congress 

 distinctly expresses its desire to have the labor 

 continued. 



(80) In the opinion of the commission, work of 

 this nature is distinctly constructive and promises 

 the ultimate possibility of an international and 

 authoritative list of the names that should be ap- 

 plied to the most commonly cited 5,000 to 10,000 

 zoological genera. 



[Here follow the lists of names. These will 

 appear in the Proceedings of the Congress.] 



(46) Presumable Permanency of the Official 

 List. — That the question as to the presumable per- 

 manency of the Official List based upon the law 

 of priority may arise in the minds of many zoolo- 

 gists is to be taken as self -understood. This ques- 

 tion may be answered as follows: 



(47) Changes in names dependent upon changes 

 in conceptions of classification can not be foreseen 

 from one generation to the next and any plan for 

 nomenclature that ignores this point makes prom- 

 ises that can not count upon being fulfilled. The 

 following statistics, however, worked out by Lester 

 F. Ward (1895) give an indication of the changes 

 that may reasonably be expected to occur upon 

 nomenclatorial grounds: 



(48) By taking the first 50 genera given in the 

 American Ornithologists' Union Check-List, it is 

 found that in only five cases did the generic name 

 remain unchanged from 1859 to 1886. Thus prior 

 to the establishment of the names on basis of the 

 law of priority, 45 of the 50 names (or 90 per 

 cent.) changed from 1859 to 1886. From 1886 

 (when the names were established on basis of the 

 law of priority) to 1895, not one of the 50 names 

 was changed. The complete list embraced 322 

 genera and about 1,000 species and subspecies. In 

 the ten years following the publication of the list 

 (based upon priority), it was found necessary to 



change, by action of the law of priority, the names 

 of 3 genera, 1 subgenus, 3 species and 1 subspecies. 



(49) The commission invites the serious atten- 

 tion of the congress to these very remarkable re- 

 sults obtained by the code of the American Ornith- 

 ologists ' Union. If our international code is 

 properly safeguarded against changes taken hastily 

 and without due deliberation as to the many com- 

 plications involved, it may reasonably be expected 

 that our International Official List will undergo 

 very few changes, upon nomenclatorial grounds, 

 but this commission can not possibly foresee what 

 changes must be adopted during the next 10 to 

 100 years because of unforeseen changes in con- 

 ceptions of classification. 



(50) The commission has the honor to request 

 definite instructions from the congress as to 

 whether or not it is the desire to have this list 

 continued. 



(51) Code of Ethics. — The commission permits 

 itself to invite attention to the fact that there 

 exists in the zoological profession no recognized 

 and generally adopted code of ethics that is com- 

 parable to the code of ethics existing in the med- 

 ical profession of certain countries. Without pre- 

 suming to be the arbiter of points of general 

 ethics, the commission is persuaded that there is 

 one phase of this subject upon which it is com- 

 petent to speak and in reference to this point it 

 suggests to the congress the adoption of the fol- 

 lowing resolution: 



(52) Whereas, Experience has shown that au- 

 thors, not infrequently, inadvertently publish, as 

 new designations of genera or species names that 

 are preoccupied, and 



Whereas, Experience has also shown that some 

 other authors discovering the homonymy have pub- 

 lished new names for the later homonyms in ques- 

 tion, he it therefore 



Besolved, That when it is noticed by any zoolo- 

 gist that the generic or the specific name pub- 

 lished by any living author as new is in reality a 

 homonym and therefore unavailable under Articles 

 34 and 36 of the Eules on Nomenclature, the 

 proper action, from a standpoint of professional 

 etiquette is for said person to notify said author 

 of the facts of the case and to give said author 

 ample opportunity to propose a substitute name. 



(53) Date of Author's Meprints or Separata. — 

 Among the cases recently submitted to the com- 

 mission for opinion is one that involves a some- 

 what unusual point in respect to reprints. Under 

 the present rules there is no article which per- 

 mits the commission to rule that all separata are 



