326 EEV. T. E. B. STEBBING ON 



and Dr. C. W. Stiles, the introduction, in EreucL, by Professor 

 Blanchard, being dated Berne, August 1904, but the whole paper 

 containing the rules themselves, in Erench, English, and German, 

 bearing as date of publication, Paris, 1905. Lastly, there is a 

 leaflet by Professor E. E. Schulze, dated Eeb. 2, 1905, reporting 

 to the Academy of Berlin the progress of ' Das Tierreich' *, 

 and especially emphasizing the efforts made by the editorial 

 staff of that vast undertaking to secure the utmost possible unity 

 among zoologists on this much-discussed subject of nomenclature. 

 That these distinguished naturalists should turn aside from 

 their own special studies and occupations, concerned with things 

 and facts and the deeper mysteries of nature, to spend much 

 time and anxious thought in the endeavour to legislate about 

 names and questions of spelling, should raise a presumption that 

 the subject is in itself not wholly unimportant. In the ordinary 

 business of life, in order that men may meet one another by 

 appointment, in order that letters and parcels may reach their 

 intended destinations, we all appreciate and use the facilities 

 aflbrded by railway guides and postal directories. We all know 

 the confusion caused by having in the same kingdom a dozen 

 towns or villages called Walton, a dozen Greorge Streets in the 

 same city, two John Smiths in the same terrace ; the incon- 

 venience that arises when a long row of houses is re-numbered ;, 

 the risk of confounding Vienne and Vienna, Tonbridge in the 

 United States with Tonbridge in Kent ; the difficulty of identi- 

 fying Mechlin with Malines, Treves with Tries, Hafnia with 

 Copenhagen, or Constantinople with Stamboul. In common 

 life, however, the troubles that arise from these causes pinch us 

 but rarely. In systematic zoology it is different. Classification 

 has to deal with thousands and ten-thousands of species, every 

 one of which requires a distinctive designation. In making this 

 assertion I readily admit that you cannot get all human beings 

 to agree on any proposition whatever ; but probably almost all 

 zoologists do think it desirable that every species of animal 

 should have a designation not shared by any other species of 

 animal, a designation valid for it and it alone in Tokio and 

 St. Petersburg, in Paris and Berlin, in Washington and London, 

 in Naples and Madrid, in Valparaiso and Melbourne — in short,^ 



* In this report the spelling of the name is changed without explanation to 

 • Das Thierreich.' 



