102 
IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
that there it would stay, w^e might put up with temporary con- 
fusion in view of the peace that should certainly follow. But 
the revisers are by no means agreed among themselves. We 
are watching a wheel which is weighted, not on one side only, 
but on two or three different sides, and we not only have no 
idea which side will eventually determine equilibrium, but we 
are certain that any repose we may secure is liable to be 
instantly and forever jeopardized by the first crank who 
chooses to give our wheel again a whirl. Meanwhile revision 
and re-naming go merrily on. Rules have been adopted by 
bodies more or less representative, first on one side of the 
Atlantic then on the other, but neither do these rules agree 
one with another. The zoologists have their set of rules to 
which some are obedient, others not. The botanists have 
their set of rules which have gotten so far as to be liable to be 
submitted to a world’s botanical congress, did such ever con- 
vene. Meantime, while nothing is settled, at least by any- 
thing like universal consensus cf opinion, there are men who 
devote their energies, not to the pursuit of science, but of 
priority; who are forever claiming to find in the work of some 
obscure naturalist of a preceding century for common objects 
names different from those in universal use, and all the world 
must perforce stop in its real pursuit of knowledge to see what 
must be done with these disturbers of the peace, until we are 
in danger of presenting to our successors, if they heed us at 
all, the spectacle of a generation of so-called scientific men 
giving more heed to names than to things. 
Now all this is trite enough. Moreover the question of nomen- 
clature is a real one, a very real one, as it has to do with an 
instrument of research, and it is one of those questions that 
never can be settled until settled right. 
It is not in the hope of being able to contribute far towards 
such settlement that the present paper is submitted, but rather 
to point out some of the difficulties to be encountered by one 
who attempts to deal with nomenclature, even in a group of 
organisms confessedly small. 
As is well knowm the Myomjcetes are a group of sapro- 
phytes, for a long time classed with the fungi and especially 
with the Gastromycetes, puff-balls, stink-horns and the like, and 
only recently, i. e., within tw^enty or thirty years, thoroughly 
studied and understocd. Although not understood, not prima- 
rily properly referred at all, mycologists weie continually 
