528 



THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. XLI 



The opinions of the botanists who are associate editors of the 

 Naturalist, upon the capitahzation question are as follows: 



a. "I shall be yevy glad to follow the practice of lower case spelling 

 for specific names in conformity with zoological usage." 



b. "I am not verv' positive in my opinions of right and Avrong on 

 the capitalization question. I am going to try to follow the Vienna 

 practice as consistently as possible. The zoological decapitalization 

 has some valid arguments against it. In its favor is the fact that no 

 knowledge is required on the part of those who adopt it, other than 

 that the specific name chosen is to be used. I should suppose that 

 for the Naturalist a uniform practice for the different departments of 

 biology would be adopted, and the line of least resistance would be 

 imiform decapitalization. Any proof-reader is then competent to 



c. "I have no decided opinion on the subject. ISIy instinct is to 

 use capitals for adjectives derived from proper nouns, as it somehow 

 does not look right to me to see them spelled with small letters. I have 

 no objection to offer if it seems best to adopt the uniform rule of small 

 letters for specific names." 



d. "Botanists should follow the international code. Personally 

 I come near it, that is, I write names derived from persons with capi- 

 tals, e. g., Goldoni Lcwi.si, and names derived from other proper nouns 

 with small letters, e. g., Goldoni perwsylranica. American scientific 

 men (some of them) seem never satisfied to do things in nomenclature 

 the wav the rest of the world does. Really we ought to write G. 

 Lnrisi^ and G. Penns,,l ranim following the genius cf the Latin lan- 

 guage." 



In order to know wlirtluT L;ilin usage had any luN.ring upon the 



I)r. A. A. Howard, Professor of Latin at Ilananl ( ■..Ucge, wlio wrote, 

 — "There are no ancient rules whatever tor th<' use ..f capital letters 

 in Classical Latin. Our earliest uianuseripis aiv wriiUMi t lirougliout 

 in capitals, and so are all inscriptions. When the uiiiuiMule letters 



