432 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXI. No. 533. 



the double employ of such a multitude of 

 names in zoology, and the consequent whole- 

 sale elimination of those preoccupied though 

 often of long currency; and also in view of the 

 wide acceptance of the A. O. U. rule that 

 names, generic or specific, ' are not to be re- 

 jected because of barbarous origin, for faulty 

 construction, for inapplicability of meaning, 

 or for erroneous signification,' and can be 

 changed only to correct typographical errors, 

 there has arisen a tendency to extend the rule 

 of priority to the form of words, and to adopt 

 names that vary to the extent of a single letter 

 as tenable, whether etymologically the same 

 or not. The first outbreak of this tendency, 

 however, in code form, is furnished by the 

 new ichthyological code, of which Canon XI., 

 as given in The Osprey, reads: 



" As a name is a word without necessary 

 meaning, and as names are identified by their 

 orthography, a generic name (typographical 

 errors corrected) is distinct from all othei-s 

 not spelled in exactly the same way. Ques- 

 tions of etymology are not pertinent in case of 

 adoption or rejection of names deemed pre- 

 occupied.'' The explanatory note following 

 states that this canon " permits the use of 

 generic names of like origin but of different 

 genders or termination to remain tenable. All 

 manner of confusion has been brought into 

 nomenclature by the change of names because 

 others nearly the same are in use. Thus the 

 Ornithologists' Union sanction the cancella- 

 tion of Erernophila because of the earlier 

 genus Eremophiliis, of Parula because of the 

 earlier Parulus, and of Helminthophaga on 

 account of Helminthophagus. On the other 

 hand. Pica and Picm are allowed.* In orni- 

 thology this matter has been handled by a 

 general agreement on the relatively few cases 

 concerned. But in other groups, the matter 

 is by no means simple, and every degree of 

 similarity can be found." 



* In this exceptional case of Pica and Picus, 

 so often cited as an inconsistency, these two 

 words are not gender forms of one name, but 

 etymologically distinct words, used by the ancient 

 classical writers as the names of two widely dif- 

 ferent birds, just as they are still used in ornitho- 

 logical nomenclature. Furthermore, it is a unique 

 case. 



This is the ' one-letter rule ' par excellence, 

 of which there have been mutterings of late 

 in various quarters. Its promoters have good 

 intentions, and high hopes, no doubt, that it 

 will prove a panacea for an admitted evil. 

 Possibly a beneficial compromise may result. 

 When we reflect, however, that two forms of 

 the same name, differing only by a single 

 letter, sometimes occur in the same class, and 

 often in the same branch, and that the same 

 name when used for the same genus is cur- 

 rent in several forms, differing sometimes 

 more radically than by a single letter, and 

 that, in many cases, the author of a name has 

 himself used it at different times in all three 

 genders, and sometimes in more than one 

 gender in the same paper, and that many au- 

 thors have in the past, and some still con- 

 tinue to exercise their own judgment or prefer- 

 ence as to the correct gender of names, it 

 seems hopeless to expect such a radical inno- 

 vation to meet with general acceptance. By 

 a slip of the pen or other lapsus even authors 

 the most careful in such matters are sometimes 

 caught using one form when they intended to 

 use another. Many generic names have four 

 to six variants that have been used for the 

 same genus, while some of them may also have 

 been current for wholly different genera. This 

 seemingly should be enough to lay the goblin 

 of the ' one-letter rule,' but it evidently is not, 

 even with otherwise level-headed naturalists. 



It would take too much space to illustrate 

 the confusion and inconvenience that would 

 arise from its serious adoption. For the full- 

 fledged systematist illustration by concrete ex- 

 amples would seem to be superfluous. 



It is a grievous inconvenience to have to 

 abandon a long-current bird name or fish name 

 for which one has almost formed an attach- 

 ment as a household word, because some one 

 has discovered that it had a prior use, per- 

 haps only in a closely similar form, for some 

 other genus of animals, perhaps insects, or 

 mollusks, or coelenterates, which had never be- 

 fore come within his horizon. In early days 

 it was held that the same generic name could 

 not be used for both animals and plants. The 

 codes later ruled that there was no necessary 

 connection between botanical nomenclature 



