1884.] 167 [Garman. 



more nearly related to some one of several varieties than to any 

 of the others. . . . The recognition of a variety is a matter to 

 be as carefully and conscientiously considered as the recognition 

 of a species or any higher group." The recognition of varieties 

 of varieties "should never be countenanced" ! Why not? If they 

 exist, as is acknowledged, we cannot do otherwise than recognize 

 them ; they must be recognized and will be named and recorded. 

 Knowledge of the whole species or group being made up of that 

 of its parts, the recognition of a variety of a variety becomes "a 

 matter to be as carefully and conscientiously considered as the 

 recognition of a species or any higher group." A classification in 

 which varieties of varieties are arbitrarily placed as varieties of the 

 common stock is not one to be accepted as a natural one. Yet the 

 author quoted above rightly says "the object of classification in 

 zoology is to express the natural or genetic relationship of the 

 object classified," I. c. p. 201. 



The derangement of the binomial by the recent changes affects 

 not only the name itself but also the clews usually given as aids in 

 tracing the history of the animal to which the name belongs. In 

 the practice of advocates of the tri- or polynomial system its adop- 

 tion necessitates changes in the authorities. Amblystoma jeffer- 

 sonianum for which the authorities are Green, for the species, and 

 Baircl, for its position in the genus, becomes in the trinomial form 

 Amblystoma jeffersonianum jeffersonianum (Green) Cope. Baird, 

 the authority for the identification of the species as an Amblys- 

 toma, is dropped for the name of the duplicator. This change de- 

 prives us of a clew to the work of Prof. Baird in connection with 

 this species. To take another example, Diadophis punctatus 

 pulchellus (Linn.), Yarrow, is a Californian variety of the species 

 named by Linne Coluber punctatus. Originally this variety was 

 described by Baird and Girard as Diadophis pulchellus. Linne 

 knew nothing whatever about it ; it is a form he never saw, and, 

 if he had seen it, he would have been very unlikely to have consid- 

 ered it distinct. In the trinomial there is no clew to the describers 

 of the form, the authorities for its existence. For punctatus we 

 can go to the twelfth edition of the Systema ; but if we take pul- 

 chellus it may be that the authority given for the combination will 

 lead us to a list of species to find that all that has been done b} T 

 this authority has been to place the names together, without indi- 



