1929] 
Common Names and Taxonomy 
107 
COMMON NAMES AND TAXONOMY 1 
By J. A. Hyslop 
Bureau of Entomology, Washington, D. C. 
Common names and taxonomy. That sounds almost like a 
paradox. The vulgar thoughts of the rabble and the profound 
cerebrations of the intellegentsia, but after all a name is a 
name, and, of course, the first names were vernacular. 
Then scientific expendiency led to a system of technical 
nomenclature so that order might be brought out of chaos. 
Thus we were to have for each organism a name universal- 
ly used and recognized, which would indicate phyletic rela- 
tionship. Undoubtedly Linneaus saw in his work the initia- 
tion of a stable system. It is well that we visit this world 
but once! 
Of course, I am in sympathy with the rules of binomial 
nomenclature and believe that nomina conservanda, in taxo- 
nomy are diametrically opposed to the laws of priority and 
the principles of natural classification. 
Therefore the vernacular name, despite its myriad col- 
loquial modifications, remains our only hope for immediate 
stability. But even here we are beset with almost insur- 
mountable difficulty : the roadside grasshopper on the Cana- 
dian Plains is Camnula pellucida and on the Atlantic sea- 
board it is Schistocerca americana. The cotton boll worm of 
Texas transforms into a corn ear worm in Iowa and into the 
tomato fruit worm in eastern Maryland. But we are becom- 
ing agreed that the yellow fever mosquito is that self-same 
insect which transmits yellow fever despite the dipterist’s 
chameleon-like changes in which he one moment decides that 
it is Stegomya fasciata, the next Stegomya calopus , then 
quickly changes to Aedes calopus , Aedes segypti, or Aedes 
argenteus. 
Presented as part of a symposium on Present Trends in System- 
atic Entomology at the anual meeting of the Entomological Society of 
America in New York City, Dec. 27, 1928. See Psyche, vol. 36, p. 13 
and 21. 
