May 12, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



749 



what I imagined to be the distant rumbling of a 

 violent tornado, on which I spurred my steed, with 

 a wish to gallop as fast as possible to a place of 

 shelter; but it would not do, the animal knew 

 better than I what was forthcoming, and instead 

 of going faster, so nearly stopped that I remarked 

 he placed one foot after another on the ground, 

 with as much precaution as if walking on a 

 smooth sheet of ice. I thought he had suddenly 

 foundered, and, speaking to him, was on the point 

 of dismounting and leading him, when he all of 

 a sudden fell a-groaning piteously, hung his head, 

 spread out his four legs as if to save himself 

 from falling, and stood stock still, continuing to 

 groan. I thought my horse was about to die, aijd 

 would have sprung from his back had a minute 

 more elapsed, but at that instant all the shrubs 

 and trees began to move from their very roots, the 

 ground rose and fell in successive furrows, like the 

 ruffled waters of a lake, and I became bewildered 

 in my ideas, as I too plainly discovered that all 

 this awful commotion in nature was the result of 

 an earthquake. * * * The fearful convulsion, how- 

 ever, lasted only a few minutes, and the heavens 

 again brightened as quickly as they had become 

 obscured; my horse brought his feet to their nat- 

 ural position, raised his head, and galloped off as 

 if loose and frollicking without a rider. * * * 

 Shock succeeded shock almost every day or night 

 for several weeks, diminishing, however, so grad- 

 ually as to dwindle away into mere vibrations of 

 the earth. Strange to say, I for one became so 

 accustomed to the feeling as rather to enjoy the 

 fears manifested by others. * * * The earthquake 

 produced more serious consequences in other 

 places. Near New Madrid and for some distance 

 on the Mississippi, the earth was rent asunder in 

 several places, one or two islands sunk forever, 

 and the inhabitants fled in dismay towards the 

 eastern shore. 



M. L. Fuller. 



U. S. Geological Survey. 



SUGGESTIONS FOR FACILITATING THE WORK OF 

 ZOOLOGISTS. 



Two plans have occurred to me which 

 ■would, I think, considerably lighten the work 

 of zoologists if they could be carried out. As 

 they do not seem wholly impracticable, I ven- 

 ture to present them for consideration and 

 discussion. 



1. No generic name is allowed to be used 

 twice in zoology; so that when any name is 

 used a second time, by inadvertence, it falls 



as a homonym, and a substitute has to be pro- 

 posed. As a matter of fact, the literature 

 swarms with such homonyms, and we are con- 

 stantly finding ourselves under the necessity 

 of making changes because of them. Now 

 that we have Scudder's ' Nomenclator ' and 

 Waterhouse's ' Index,' bringing the list of 

 names proposed up to 1900, it ought to be 

 quite possible to overhaul the whole series up 

 to date, and make a list of all the homonyms 

 known. If such a list were made in manu- 

 script it might be divided into minor series 

 according to the groups of animals, and each 

 of these sent to a specialist in the group con- 

 cerned. These specialists might then go care- 

 fully over the lists, seeking the advice and 

 assistance of colleagues, and sift out all the 

 names for which substitutes had already been 

 proposed, and those which stood for invalid 

 genera, leaving a residue of homonymous 

 names for valid genera to be dealt with. This 

 residue would have to be again examined to 

 see whether any other names, hitherto placed 

 in the synonymy, could be substituted, and 

 when this could not be done new names should 

 be proposed. This would involve a great deal 

 of work, but it would get rid of the trouble 

 from homonyms once for all, so far as the past 

 is concerned ; except, of course, those resulting 

 from names overlooked in the indices. It 

 would save us from the present sense of in- 

 security regarding names, and from a great 

 deal of duplicated labor in looking up the 

 names in use, lest they should be preoccupied. 

 If the full list were published, it would also 

 prevent the proposal of new substitutes for 

 names which had already been suitably re- 

 placed on account of homonymy. 



Such a work ought to be cooperative; be- 

 cause it could not be done well — even the first 

 part, of matching names and detecting hom- 

 onyms — by persons unfamiliar with scien- 

 tific names; while it would not be reasonable 

 to expect a working zoologist to devote his 

 time to it to the exclusion of his original in- 

 vestigations. If each letter, in the first part 

 of the work, were undertaken by one indi- 

 vidual, it would not be long before it might 

 be finished. For the later investigations, spe- 

 cialists would have to be allowed to take their 



