8 Sherborn : Notes on Bibliography y Publication ^ etc. 



of Linnaeus, which after standing for 150 years as the name o^ 

 the common house-mouse, has lately been questioned. It is 

 interesting to note that this was the very species quoted by 

 me in 1899 in my 'Index to the tenth and twelfth editions of 

 Linnaeus' Systema Nature,' which I may be allowed to quote, 

 as it contains matters pertinent to our subject. I wrote, *In 

 spite of the difficulties, and they are many, I am of the opinion 

 that a rigid adherence to the law of priority, would eventually 

 lead to a great simplification of nomenclature, but the impossi- 

 bility of determining what an author means when he refers to a 

 genus and species founded by an earlier author, allows one to 

 regard with respect the views of those who think priority 

 tempered with common sense the better method. Briefly it 

 amounts to this : an author says he has a specimen of Mtis 

 muscidus Linngeus. In the first place we ask does the author 

 know what Linnaeus meant by Mus ?}iusciiliis? In the second, 

 is the author competent to judge that he has that identical 

 species ? The question, therefore, must always be one of 

 personal idiosyncracy, and finally is practically impossible.' 

 A further difficulty is the spelling of generic names, Olopus 

 or Holopjis, Cheirotheriiwi or Chirotheriuniy Kokkoksteiis or 

 CoccosteuSy according- to the nationality or otherwise of the 

 person using the words compounded from classical languages. 

 A good example of this kind of thing is seen in CoelogentiSy 

 which has been written Coelogenys^ Ccelogeiius, Ccelogenys, 

 Ccelogoiitis, and Caelogenys. 



Herrera points out that of ninety-five authors who have 

 written on Alaiida cristata, this bird has been put alternately 

 into Alauda or Galerita by almost each successive writer."^ 

 If generic diagnoses are any good at all, the bird must be 

 either an Alauda or a Galerita^ but many diagnoses are so 

 vague that confusion exists even there. Only the other day 

 I was asked to advise on the diagnostic characters of a fossil 

 Pterosaur, and on looking up the matter found that the author 

 in his first paper said the genus had *no teeth anterior to the 

 palate,' and in his second that 'the teeth are prolonged anterior 

 to the muzzle.' 



Other difficulties arise from those ingenious wits who make 

 fictitious names. Botheratiotheritun and Unclesambocrinus may 

 be intelligible to an English-speaking person, but what of a * 

 Japanese, Russian, or Greek, who is trying in vain to unravel 



* Nat. Sr/., Jan. 1896, 6. 



Naturalist, 



