330 EEV. T. 1?. E. STEBBING Olf 



aud liberally distributed. But that distribution is temporaiy,. 

 and almost of necessity limited to the persons who in a sense 

 least need it — that is, to the persons kuown to be interested in 

 the subject, who would therefore be almost sure to make 

 themselves acquainted with essential items of its literature. 

 Many will remember what happened with the Stricklandiau 

 Rules under the auspices of the British Association. They were 

 left without any definite stamp of the issuing authority. They 

 were allowed to go out of print. There was never auy effort 

 made in England, so far as I am aware, to impress upon 

 beginners in zoology that any rules existed by which they might 

 conyeuiently be guided. Editors in Prance were just as remiss. 

 At least in one conspicuous instance they allowed a writer to 

 load science with barbarous names as well as almost equally 

 strange descriptions. 



The Stricldandian Eules adopted the 12th edition of the 

 ' Systema Naturae,' which began its publication in 1766, as the 

 starting-point for modern zoological nomenclature. The Inter- 

 national Eules accept the 10th edition of the ' Systema,' and 

 January 1st, 175S, as epoch-making for the same purpose. 

 Might it not be better, even now, to fix the beginning of the 

 new era in 1751 ? This would put the dividing-line in the 

 exact middle of the eighteenth century. It would give the 

 ' PJiilosophia botanica ' its due acknowledgment as the leader 

 in a great reform. It would bring into line at least one 

 important work on zoology, Clerck's ' Arauei Suecici,' in 

 which the binomial usage was followed prior to 1758. This 

 last consideration is by no means trivial, for it seems in- 

 excusably ungenerous and improper to set up a standard of 

 nomenclature, and then to invalidate names used in accord 

 with that standard, only because they were published before 

 an arbitrary date. I urge this in spite of a small personal 

 interest which I have in upholding the year 1758, because that 

 is the year in which Borlase published ' The Natural History of 

 Cornwall.' More than once I have maintained that Astacus is 

 the proper generic name for the common English lobster. Now 

 Borlase at page 27-1 of the work just mentioned, after speaking of 

 what he calls the Long Oyster (the Locusta marina of Aldrovandi),, 

 distinguishes from it "the lobster, or Astacus verus, much 

 superior in delicacy of food to the former, and in such plenty 

 on the coasts of Cornwall, that "Well-boats come to load, and 



