S34 BET. T. R, B. STEBBING ON 



plementum,' but merely as a civil invitation to other naturalists 

 not to interfere with them — a very superfluous precaution if 

 they had been already preoccupied by Weber. When the ' Sup- 

 plementum ' was published in 1798, it took no notice whatever 

 of Weber's unauthorized programme. Miss Eathbun now wishes 

 to re-introduce it as a dominant though very confounding force 

 in carcinology. Are we to accept the ruling that a genus will be 

 well founded if an author publishes the simple statement that 

 another author proposes at some future time to use such and 

 such a generic name for such and such previously-known 

 species ? By answering yes, you would, I conceive, put a 

 weapon into the hands of idle, ignorant, mischievous persons 

 who might soon make you regret the response. 



But the rejection of Weber's catalogue as valueless still leaves 

 open for consideration a point of some importance. It has, in 

 fact, been hitherto the privilege of naturalists, in separating a 

 species of which the distinctive characters are known, to establish 

 a new genus for it, by simply referring to the work in which 

 those distinctive characters have been already published. They 

 practically become the definition of the noAv genus, merely being 

 raised from specific to generic value. But this privilege, more 

 conducive to slovenliness in authors than to contentment in their 

 students, is open to great abuse, should the new genus be created 

 ]iot for one or two species but for a considerable number. 

 Would it not be well that the privilege should be strictly defined 

 or cancelled — for the future ? 



In the last proposal stress is laid on the words " for the 

 future." We cannot come to an agreement with posterity. 

 We cannot bind our successors. But by equity towards the 

 past we may win some title to equity from the future. Now, in 

 the early Linnean time, as you know, one generic name often 

 covered an enormous number of species. The genus Cancer, for 

 example, included all the crabs and lobsters and shrimps and some 

 other things, which are now dispersed over hundreds of genera 

 in several orders and numerous families. When the necessary 

 breaking up of an unwieldy genus began, it was a common practice, 

 in endowing a particular species with separate generic rank, to 

 adopt its specific name for the new genus and to bestow upon the 

 species itself a new specific name. Thus the common shrimp, 

 Cancer crangoii, Linnseus, became Crangon vulgaris, Fabricius. 

 When this was done, there was no rule against doing it. But 



