
640 The American Naturalist. [July, 
EDITORIAL. 
EDITORS, E. D. COPE AND J. S. KINGSLEY. 
: T is generally conceded that it is important to avoid the dupli- 
cation of names of like rank in the nomenclature of each of 
the great divisions of organic life. A genus of plants may bear 
the same name as a genus of animals, but no two genera of either 
must bear the same name. There has, however, recently developed 
a difference of opinion as to what constitutes identity of name. 
It was for a long period assumed that any difference is a differ- 
ence, and that words identical except as to masculine or feminine 
termination are different words. Thus no one thought of regarding 
Picus and Pica as duplicates, and the two appeared together in 
ornithologies for nearly a century. But the desire for change 
stimulated somebody to consider the use of one of them a dupli- 
cation of the other, and a new name was proposed to take the 
place of the one which was introduced latest. Following this 
example, numerous changes have been proposed for the same 
reason. But there are other instances where the difference extends 
to two letters, as in the case of Menodus and Menodon, and here 
also change has been introduced. If a difference of two letters 
is not enough to preserve two names, it becomes a question 
how many letters will constitute diversity, and so on. There seems 
to be a preference also that a difference of a letter in the beginning 
of a name is of greater moment than such a difference towards _ 
or at the end of aname. Thus no one has proposed to change 
the name Tinodon because there is also a name Dinodon, or 
Momus because there is a Mimus, or Mora because there is a 
Mola. The number of changes which may be made on such 
grounds as these is very great, and the name-changers have yet a 
large field before them. 
From another point of view we can see that if differences of 
one or two letters are not admissible, we are debarred from the 
use of a large proportion of possible "ħames. Thus we cannot 
have Manodus nor Monodus, nor Melodus nor Tenodus, nor 





ae RE te S SRA 
EA NE RE Ae AAE E T A. 


