MORSE: OBSERVATIONS ON LAMELLIBRANCHS. 141 
the subject? He may have been a collector only, or, worse still, 
an accumulator, a compiler of an auction catalogue, a discoverer 
of a provincial museum, or crazy, like Rafinesque. All these 
conditions should be inquired into before a new name should 
be allowed to sweep away landmarks of a hundred years' standing. 
In common law a tract of land not fenced in and used as a 
thoroughfare for twenty years becomes public property. A 
similar law should obtain regarding names, allowing perhaps 
fifty years. 
The distinguished zoologist, Dr. Charles Sedgwick Minot, in a 
paper on Zoological Problems, in speaking of the Linnaean system 
of nomenclature asks "whether it is desiraVjle to return in some 
form to the use of the Linnaean system, which gradually has 
been replaced by an entirely new binomial system. We have 
retained the form, while we have rejected the principle of nomen- 
clature introduced by Linnaeus, who used the generic name in a 
wide sense to indicate the kind. The whole number of generic 
names was small and easily acquired, so that the combination 
of the two names gave a general and special designation. At 
present genera are also special groups and approximate to a 
single species so far has the subdivision gone. It results that the 
name we call generic is no longer generic in value. Of the two 
extremes the Linnaean is, I believe, preferable. I expect to see a 
large number of genera set aside hereafter" (Proc. Amer. 
Assoc. Adv. Sci., 1885, vol. 33, p. 519). 
Dr. Minot also read a paper upon the limits of genera, and 
presented in a tabular form the total and average number of 
species and genera in several orders of North American insects. 
"The number of species in each genus is shown by the table 
to be usually very small, a large number of genera being repre- 
sented by only one, two or three species. The author regretted 
this condition of things, feeHng that it was a cause of great dis- 
couragement to many who would otherwise become students of 
natural science" (Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., 1869, vol. 12, 
p. 380). 
Francis N. Balch, a lawyer as well as a malacologist, in Science 
for June 25, 1909, discusses the nomenclature question from a 
lawyer's standpoint. After quoting a discussion between two 
eminent malacologists on some question of nomenclature, he 
