262 Proposed Reform of Zoological Nomenclature. 
Series of Propositions for rendering the Nomenclature of 
Zoology uniform and permanent. 
[Reprinted from the Report of the British Association four 1842.] 
PREFACE, 
All persons who are conversant with the present state of Zoology 
must be aware of the great detriment which the science sustains 
from the vagueness and uncertainty of its nomenclature. We do 
not here refer to those diversities of language which arise from 
the various methods of classification adopted by different authors, 
and which are unavoidable in the present state of our knowledge. 
So long as naturalists differ in the views which they are disposed 
to take of the natural affinities of animals there will always be 
diversities of classification, and the only way to arrive at the true 
system of nature is to allow perfect liberty to systematists in this 
respect. But the evil complained of is of a different character. 
It consists in this, that when naturalists are agreed as to the 
characters and limits of an individual group or species, they still 
disagree in the appellations by which they distinguish it. <A 
genus is often designated by three or four, and a species by twice 
that number of precisely equivalent synonyms; and in the absence 
of any rule on the subject, the naturalist is wholly at a loss what 
nomenclature to adopt. The consequence is, that the so-called 
commonwealth of science is becoming daily divided into indepen-. 
dent states, kept asunder by diversities of language as well as by 
geographical limits. If an English zoologist, for example, visits 
the museums and converses with the professors of France, he finds 
that their scientific language is almost as foreign to him as their 
vernacular. Almost every specimen which he examines is labelled 
by a title which is unknown to him, and he feels that nothing 
short of a continued residence in that country can make him con- 
versant with her science. If he proceeds thence to Germany or 
Russia, he is again at a loss; bewildered everywhere amidst the 
confusion of nomenclature, he returns in despair to his own 
country and to the museums and books to which he is accustomed. 
If these diversities of scientific language were as deeply rooted as 
the vernacular tongue of each country, it would of course be hope- 
less to think of remedying them; but happily this is not the case. 
The language of science is in the mouths of comparatively few, 
and these few, though scattered over distant lands, are in habits of 
frequent and friendly intercourse with each other. All that is 
wanted, then, is, that some plain and simple regulations, founded 
on justice and sound reason, should be drawn up by a competent 
body of persons, and then be extensively distributed throughout 
the zoological world. 
The undivided attention of chemists, of astronomers, of anato- 
