viii PEEPACE. 



Before concluding these general remarks, I think it desirable to make some 

 observations regarding the long vexed question of the ^priority of names, in order 

 to justify the procedure which I have adopted in the subsequent records. 



Several years since the attention of naturalists was drawn* to the incorrect 

 interpretation of the laws which should regulate the priority of names in Zoology 

 and Botany. The innovation of accepting pre-Linnean names was a few years 

 ago somewhat hastily accepted by a number of naturalists and partially carried 

 out regardless of everything else ; but it has equally hastily been abandoned by 

 others. 



The British Association Committee devised a rule that the 10th edition of 

 Linne's Sy sterna Naturce, published in 1758, should be taken as the starting point, 

 and that no names given prior to that date should be admitted as possessing right 

 to priority. So far as specific names are concerned, at least in Zoology, t this 

 rule may safely be regarded as correct, $ but it is decidedly not so with regard to 

 generic§ names. I cannot believe that the rule will ever be accepted by all 

 naturalists in that general form ; it is certainly not a Linnean rule as it is supposed 

 by many to be. The rules which should regulate priority of generic names had 

 been established with very great detail by Linne himself in his Phil. Botanica 

 §§. 210 — 250, published in 1750. Some of these were afterwards neglected by 

 Linne himself, and a few others, being impracticable, were superseded by other 

 rules, but most of them have regulated science since their publication in 1750, 

 and are in force up to the present day. I have but little doubt that we are 

 perfectly entitled to go even further back than the year 1750 ; in fact, I believe^ 

 the respect due to the labours of former naturalists dictates this, and the more 

 we become acquainted with the many old literary treasures, the greater wiU be 

 the number of those who will pay respect to them. It appears to me that the 

 date for the acceptance of generic names should be extended as far back as 1699, 

 the time of writing of Luidius (Llwyd), who was immediately followed by James 

 Petiver and Eumph ( Amboin-Eariteitkamer) and others. This is a point which 

 yet requires very close examination. In no case, however, are we entitled to set 



MalaLLof BlS^^^^^^ ^^^^'''''''''^ ''''- '^ ''' ^^ -' ^^^- ^^^^ ^^^'^ '^'^> ^^^ - -^. H, and in 



t 1^49 would be the proper date for Botany. 

 ^ J The rule of binominal nomenclature is not subject to any alterations by the system which is now bein^ often 

 itlT;:;:::" '' '"' "^^ -' -'"'■''-''' --' '^ -'^^^ -^*^°^' ^''"' ^^-^^^' ^ tHnomin7nomen- 



much tollr? "';""" °"f * r* *" ^' '^'"'"^''^ *° '''' ^'^^''^ ^'"^'«-' - &-'li^^ --d orders, &c. ; they are 

 much too hable to undergo changes by the progress in the examination of the elements of which they ar^ com;osedf 



