248 NOMENCLATURE. 



objects to which the}' were applied, but the vast multiplication 

 of descriptions of natural objects has caused some doubt as to 

 the proprieiy of using such names, especiall}' for species : thus, 

 Paludina mridis^ meaning the green paludina, a good-enough 

 designation at one time, becomes confusing when fifty other 

 equally green species of the same genus have become known to 

 us, and so on, of other qualities, and especially of those desig- 

 nated comparativel}'' — as small, smallest, largest, etc. A specific 

 name which expresses no quality of the species and thus only 

 becomes associated with the latter arbitrarily is decidedly favored 

 by many modern students. Genera are usually printed in caps, 

 species in small caps, synonyms (of which more hereafter) in 

 italics ; but when these names occur in the body of a text they 

 are indifferently printed in italics. 



All names, generic or specific, are followed by the full or con- 

 tracted name of the author thereof. Apart from the personal 

 considerations causing the adoption of this practice, there are 

 others of purely scientific importance. The principal of these 

 is, that owing to the insufficiency of a description or the stupidity 

 of those who fail to understand a sufficient diagnosis, the name 

 originally applied by one author to some object, conies to be 

 applied by another and subsequent author to another object, 

 usually more or less related to the first ; or an original description 

 may prove to cover two or more distinct species, and then one 

 of these must be selected by a subsequent author to retain the 

 original name, whilst the others receive new ones. In such, and 

 other similar cases, the addition of the author's name informs us 

 that the species referred to is, for instance, that named by 

 Linnffius, and not the different object similarly named in error 

 by Lamarck. 



The love of scientific reputation, haste, the want of the pains- 

 taking and discriminating qualities which should distinguish a 

 naturalist, above all the practice of working in localities where 

 reference to the many thousands of publications on natural 

 history is inconvenient or impossible, have led to a deplorable 

 duplication of generic and (principally) specific names -and 

 diagnoses. It has been universally agreed to prefer in all such 

 cases the name first published with a sufficient diagnosis, the 

 other or subsequently printed names becoming synonyms. It 

 is also generally agreed by conchologists to accept no specific 

 names dated earlier than 1758, when Linnseus published the 10th 

 edition of his Systema Naturae. The exceptions are mainly 

 generic names, some of the great Swede's predecessors far sur- 

 passing him in their appreciation of generic characters. For 

 many of the older and generally less accurately described objects 

 the synonymy has become prodigious, and even at the present 

 day, ^ome of the reasons given above afe so active in the pro- 



! 



