448 MELVILL: THE PRINCIPLES OF NOMENCLATURE. 
chologists than he, who has the great and abiding honour, 
nevertheless, of being recognized as the founder of the binomial 
system. 
II].—CauseEs LEADING TO NECESSARY REVISIONS IN 
ZOOLOGICAL NOMENCLATURE. 
But this new system, perhaps through its very straight- 
forwardness and simplicity, opened the flood-gates to a horde 
of new describers and systematists. At this early period, when 
intercommunication was naturally difficult, men were often 
working upon some subject in utter ignorance of other authors 
similarly employed, thereby unconsciously duplicating names, 
with or without proper descriptions, and bringing about an 
unpleasant condition of synonymy and confusion. It was this 
increasingly intolerable position of things that caused the 
inauguration of the proposed ‘‘ Rules for the revision of Zoo- 
logical and Botanical Nomenclature” in 1842, and while much 
has been done to remedy the defects of that period of eighty- 
four years or so, much, especially as regards the species, remains 
to be done. . 
Indeed, the only effort that had meanwhile been made to 
establish and keep up such rules, was in 1813, when M. A. de 
Candolle applied himself to the task in the interests of Botany 
alone. He made a code, on the same lines as Linnzeus, whose 
system he thus served to strengthen. He was especially rigid 
on the subject of the maintenance of specific terms, excepting 
in certain cases, which he summarized, always adhering to the 
law of priority. 
It may not be known to many of us, or perhaps be a for- 
gotten fact, that Manchester was the city in which the British 
Association held their famous and memorable meeting of June, 
1842. Famous and memorable chiefly because a committee 
which had been selected the previous year to discuss the vexed 
question of a revision of Zoological and Botanical Nomencla- 
J.C., viii., Oct., 1897. 
