356 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
the auspices of the British Association in 1842. The worst feature of 
this abuse is not so much the bestowal of unknown names on well- 
known creatures as the transfer of names from one to another, as we 
have seen in the case of Astacus, Torpedo, Holothuria, Sima, Cyno- 
cephalus, and many others which must be present to the mind of 
every systematist. The names that were used uniformly by Cuvier, 
Johannes Miiller, Owen, Agassiz, Darwin, Huxley, Gegenbaur, would 
no longer convey any meaning, very often they would be misunder- 
stood; in fact, the very object for which Latin or Latinized names 
were introduced would be defeated. It is all very well to talk of uni- 
formity in the future, but surely we must have some consideration 
for the past. Names with which all general zoologists, anatomists, 
and physiologists are familiar should be respected, should be excepted 
from the rule in virtue of what may be termed the privilege of pre- 
scription. If biologists would agree to make that one exception to 
the law of priority in nomenclature, things would adjust themselves 
well enough, and we might hope to see realized some day what we all 
desire, fixity in names, that we may readily understand the meaning 
of all writers, not only over the whole civilized world, at the present 
day and in the future, but back into the past century which has 
marked so great an advance in zoological science. Such a result 
would be attained by protecting time-honoured names of well-known 
animals from the attacks of the revisers of nomenclature. Tor this 
purpose future committees that may be convened to discuss these 
topics might confer a real and lasting benefit on zoology by deter- 
mining, group by group, which names are entitled to respect, not, of 
course, on the ground of their earliest date or their correct application 
in the past, but as having been universally used in a definite sense. 
This suggestion is not a new one. As far back as 1896, in a discussion 
which took place at the Zoological Society of London, Sir Ray Lan- 
kester, protesting against the digging up of old names, suggested that 
an international committee should be formed, not to draw up a code 
of rules but ‘to produce an authoritative list of names—once and for 
all—about which no lawyer-like haggling should hereafter be per- 
mitted.” Twelve years have elapsed, and nothing of the kind has 
been arranged. On the contrary, the various committees that have 
legislated since have insisted on absolute priority, and we often read 
that such a decision has been arrived at by international agreement. 
It is not so; a great body of zoologists in this country protest and 
hope that something will be done towards carrying out the proposal 
here briefly set forth, which seems to be the only proper step to take 
in order to prevent the confusion with which we are menaced. 
‘An Inquiry into the Feeding Habits of British Birds” was the 
subject of a paper by Mr. C. Gordon Hewitt. It is becoming in- 
creasingly difficult, with the introduction of scientific methods into 
agriculture, horticulture, and forestry, for zoologists studying economic 
problems to form a definite opinion with regard to the economic 
status of many species of the birds of our islands, such as, for example, 
the Rook, Jay, Starling, Chaftinch and other finches, and many other 
birds. This difficulty is entirely due to the almost complete absence 
in this country of any precise information as to the food habits of our 
