er Mysticete (!) nennt, ete.-- age Mel. biol., viii, 317. 
28 THE GENETIC RELATIONS OF THE CETACEANS. 
I shall only add that I have no intense convig¢tions of the cor- 
rectness of this representation, and regard it as simply provis- 
ional and subject to the modifications which the accumulating 
testimony now being so rapidly wrested from the living and the 
dead may necessitate. I do believe, however, that it is not in 
opposition to the data which have up to the present time been 
collected and tabulated. The advantages of such tables, in bring- 
ing into synoptical form and impressing upon the mind the vari- 
ous degrees of relationship and subordination of the respective 
subdivisions of a group, appear to me to be equally obvious 
(although not equally pregnant with meaning), whether we are 
evolutionists or patternists. 
Remarks on Dr. Brandts classification.— A few words on no- 
menclature and on the subfamilies of Mysticetes may be advis- 
able. 
Dr. Brandt* implies censures, by an exclamation mark (!), on 
the name Mysticete, and the inference conveyed thereby, and by 
his language, would be that I was responsible for the introduction 
of the name. As to the name itself, I perfectly agree with Dr. 
Brandt that it is objectionable and I hesitated sometime before 
adopting it. It was, however, the first introduced (by Gray, in 
8647) and for that reason and that alone, I have employed it. 
It seems strange that Dr. Brandt skould have been ignorant of 
this previous introduction, as he has referred to Gray’s works in 
his memoir. I adopt very many names that are objectionable to 
me, recognizing as I do the inexorable demands of priority,{ nor 
consider it necessary to protest against every inapt or un- 
grammatical name thus adopted, ‘or found in the works of others, 
SER = example, as Kyphobalena and others adopted .by Dr. 
As to the subfamilies, Dr. Brandt has suppressed those admitted 
by myself and others aam the Balænopterids adding, however, 
* Eine dritte, neueste, von Th ai Pa eT Pare UN air A eats 
’ 
Teat Proc. Zool. Soc. 1864, p. 198. It is tr è that Brisson had before called the 
cea edentula, and ac Pelican PRT but neither of those names 
Ceta 
fuitited th the requisites of nomene 
Lest I may be here, e aaia I add that I simply recognize the rule of 
priority because of the ad ntage afforded as a basis for uniform rmity of nomenclature, 
— am em influenced in n the slightest degree by any considerations of “ honor ” 
= nomenclato! 
ETET oikoa ck 1 ee Agee a ir rama as 
= 
SS E E a ENEE EASA T 
ae a a Ti 
D E ee mane Ny ao Se aac ge kn Saar Raita) ES 
