ON ZOOLOGICAL NOMENCLATURE. 
41 
higher rank (as the species) retains the name while that of less value (as 
the variety) takes a new appellation. (DC.) Compare § LVII. 
§ LVII. When a nominal genus is reduced to the rank of a subgenus or 
a group nominally of subgeneric value is erected into a genus; when a 
species becomes a subspecies or vice versa; their respective names re- 
main unchanged, provided there does not result from it two genera or 
subgenera of the same name in the animal or vegetable kingdom, two 
species of the same name in one genus, or two subdivisions of a species 
of the same name in the same species. (DC.) 
But iii combining two groups previously considered as of equal rank, but of which 
thereafter one is to be subordinate to the other, the newest (or least widely known 
ivhen both are of the same date) is the one to take subordinate rank; on the principle 
set forth in § LIV. 
Of a starting point for Binomial Nomenclature. 
§ LVIII. The scientific study of different groups, having a value greater 
than or equal to that of a class (classis), having been begun at different 
epochs, and the inception of that study in each group respectively being 
usually due to some “epoch-making” work, the students of each of the 
respective groups as above limited may properly unite in adopting the 
date of such work as the starting point in nomenclature for the particular 
class to which it refers: Provided , — (1), that specific names shall in no 
case antedate the promulgation of the Linnsean rules (Fliilosophia botan- 
ica, 1751) ; that (2), until formal notice by publication, of the decision of 
such associated specialists (in such manner as may be by them determined 
upon), shall be decisively promulgated, the adoption of the epoch or 
starting point recommended by the committee of the British Association in 
1842, namely, the twelfth edition of the Systema Nature of Linnaeus 
(17GG), shall be taken as the established epoch for all zoological nomencla- 
ture. Lastly, that (3), when the determination of the epoch for any par- 
ticular group, as above shall have been made, the decision shall be held 
to affect that group alone, the British Association date holding good for 
all other groups until the decision for each particular case shall have been 
made by the Naturalists interested in it, upon its own merits. (Cf. Lee., 
f 1, p. 203, et. seq ) 
Recommended by the Reporter for adoption. 
The question at issue is one upon which naturalists are unfortunately much divided 
in opinion, and the difficulties arising from this diversity are becoming more injurious 
to science with each succeeding year. 
The decision is, of course, of fundamental importance in many branches of zoology. 
In order that the question may be better understood, a brief historical statement is 
subjoined. 
A series of rules for nomenclature was to some extent foreshadowed by Linn am s in 
his Fundamenta Entomologia of 1736. These rules were first definitively proposed in the 
Philosophica Botanica, which appeared in 1751. These rules, however, related almost 
exclusively to the generic name or nomen genericum. In 1745 he had employed for a 
few species of plants for the first time a specific name ( nomen triviale) composed of one 
