Proposed Reform of Zoological Nomenclature. 271 
Plectorhynchus, being preoccupied in Ichthyology, is changed to 
Plectorhamphus. It is, we conceive, the bounden duty of an 
author, when naming a new genus, to ascertain by careful search 
that the name which he proposes to employ has not been pre- 
viously adopted in other departments of natural history.* By 
neglecting this precaution he is liable to have the name altered 
and his authority superseded by the first subsequent author who 
may detect the oversight, and for this result, however unfortunate, 
we fear there is no remedy, though such cases would be less fre- 
quent if the detectors of these errors would, as an act of courtesy, 
poit them out to the author himself, if living, and leave it to 
him to correct his own inadvertencies. This occasional hardship 
appears to us to be a less evil than to permit the practice of giving 
the same generic name ad libitum to a multiplicity of genera. 
We submit, therefore, that 
§ 10. A name should be changed which has before been 
proposed for some other genus in zoology or botany, or for 
some other species in the same genus, when still retained 
for such genus or species. 
[Ad name whose meaning is glaringly false may be changed. ] 
Our next proposition has no other claim for adoption than that 
of being a concession to human infirmity. If such proper names 
of places as Covent Garden, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Newcastle, 
Bridgewater, &c., no longer suggest the ideas of gardens, fields, 
castles, or bridges, but refer the mind with the quickness of 
thought to the particular localities which they respectively desig- 
nate, there seems no reason why the proper names used in natural 
history should not equally perform the office of correct indication, 
even when their etymological meaning may be wholly inapplicable 
to the object which they typify. But we must remember that the 
language of science has but a limited currency, and hence the 
words which compose it do not circulate with the same freedom 
and rapidity as those which belong to every-day life. The at- 
tention is consequently liable in scientific studies to be diverted 
from the contemplation of the thing signified to the etymological 
meaning of the sign, and hence it is necessary to provide that, the 
latter shall not be such as to propagate actual error. Instances 
of this kind are indeed very rare, and in some cases, such as that 
of Monodon, Caprimulgus, Paradisea apoda and Monoculus, they 
have acquired sufficient currency no longer to cause error, and are 
therefore retained without change. But when we find a Batrachian 
reptile named in violation of its true affinities Mastodon saurus, a 
* This laborious and difficult research will in future be greatly facilitated 
by the very useful work of M. Agassiz, entitled ‘‘ Nomenclator Zoologicus.” 
