372 
ties, up to Mr. Alfred Russell Wallace and to 
Professor Cockerell, who thinks ‘‘that the 
human race has no natural craving for alcohol 
at all, but it has a craying for excitement and 
other states of mind which may be induced 
artificially, and that when the natural exercise of 
highly valuable faculties is denied, as is so often 
the case in our present civilization, artificial 
means, often highly injurious, will be resorted 
to.’’? But it is the absolute savage who is most 
prone of all races on earth to excessive indul- 
gence, and surely, living, as he does, in a ‘state 
of nature,’ the natural exercise of ‘highly val- 
uable faculties’ is not denied to him. More- 
over, if Professor Cockerell is right, what is the 
difference between the civilization of the South 
and North of Europe, which permits in the 
former case the natural exercise of valuable 
faculties, but forbids them in the latter, for the 
north Europeans are much more drunken than 
the south Europeans. 
Let the reader think awhile. Why does he 
not get drunk? Is it because he constantly re- 
sists the craving, or because the craving does 
not exist in him? I think he will say, ‘the 
latter.’ But has he no acquaintance, reared 
and living under much the same conditions, 
who drinks, to excess, though all his interests 
call him to abstain? I think he is sure to have 
such an acquaintance. Now, in this respect 
nations like the Italians or the Spaniards are 
mainly composed of individuals like my reader, 
while nations like the American Indians or the 
native Australians are mainly composed of in- 
dividuals like his unfortunate acquaintance. 
Here is a significant fact: old recordsseem to 
prove that the classic races were anciently much 
more intemperate than at the present time. 
For instance, the temperance question was 
formerly a burning one in Greece, where un- 
happy Helots were made to furnish ‘awful 
examples’ to the aristocratic youth. Here is 
another: the deadly narcotic opium has been in 
use for some hundreds of years in India, and 
never or yery rarely does a native of that 
country take it to excess ; it has been in use for 
about two hundred years in China, and most of 
the Chinese are temperate, though some take 
it to excess; it has been recently introduced 
into Burmah, and, practically speaking, all 
SCIENCE. 
[N.S Vou. VI. No. 140. 
Burmans take it to such excess that they perish 
of it, and, therefore, in their own country the 
English have forbidden the use of opium to 
Burmans alone, while permitting it to all other 
peoples, just as in Canada alcohol is forbidden 
to the aborigines alone. Here is a third: 
tobacco causes little or no elimination, and, 
therefore, the craving for it is as strong in races 
that have longest used it as among races to 
which its use is comparatively strange. 
G. ARCHDALL REID, 
LourHsEA, ENGLAND. 
AMPHIBIA OR BATRACHIA, 
PROFESSOR BuRT G. WILDER has made some 
remarks in the last number of ScrENCE (August 
20, 1897) about the French word Batraciens. 
He says: ‘‘Dr. Baur shows that the French 
word Batraciens was applied to the frogs, toads 
and salamanders by Brogniart in 1799, and 
that the Latin forms Batrachit and Batrachia 
were not introduced until 1804 and 1807, by 
Latreille and Gravenhost. But does not Dr. 
Baur lay undue stress upon the distinction be- 
tween the French and the Latin form? Batra- 
ciens is not (like crapaud, etc.) a vernacular 
word; it is the French form, or, galloparo- 
nym (!), of the Latin Batrachia, and the em- 
ployment of the former would seem to con- 
structively sanction the use of the latter.’’ 
Professor Wilder ‘as a teacher of zoology, but 
without claim to expert authority upon taxo- 
nomic points,’ seems to be absolutely ignorant 
of the fundamental rule in nomenclature ( pub- 
lished in all Codes of Nomenclature), that all 
vernacular names, of genera, families, orders, 
classes, even if formed from a classical root, 
are never accepted. Such vernacular names 
have especially been used in France by Cuvier, 
Lesson, de Blainville and notably other French 
writers of the early part of the present cen- 
tury. Such names have in many cases been 
later adopted into the science under a proper 
classical form, and should take date only from 
this later introduction. Ishould like to recom- 
mend to Professor Wilder the study of ‘The 
Code of Nomenclature adopted by the Ameri- 
can Ornithologists’ Union, 1892.’ This code 
is followed by all American naturalists. The 
case of hippocampus referred to by Professor 
