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SOME REMARKS ON ENTOMOLOGICAL NOMENCLATURE
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 May 2012
Extract
The papers on Nomenclature, letely published in the Canadian Entomologist, have much interested me, and doubtless many others, and as the subject is one that just now, for reasons well known, appeals especially to Lepidopterists, I beg to be allowed a little of your space to give my views thereupon, and to state what I believe is a practicable remedy for the evils complained of.
I am glad that this matter of Nomenclature was brought so prominently forward by the Entomologists present at the Meeting of the American Association for 1872, and that a Committee was appointed by the Entomological section to report a series of Rules for consideration at the next Meeting.
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* Note.—See also a very able pamphlet by Mr. Lewis, entitled. “A Discussion of the Laws of Priority in Entomological Nomenclature,” Lond. 1872, which I advise all persons who care to make themselves better acquainted with the subject, to obtain. It may be had through the Naturalists' Agency, Salem,
* Prof. Verrill, in his comment on Rule 2, says:—“Disregard of this important and essential law (viz., fixing the 12th edition as the starting point,) has brought into Conchology, and some other branches of Zoology, an almost incredible amount of confusion.”
† “Notwithstanding the Rules sanctioned by the authority of the Brit. Ass'n, it would not seem that any perceptible improvement has taken place.”—G. R. Crotch, Cist. Ent., 1872
Mr. Kirby has revised, &c., “in accordance with a series of Rules selected from those issued by the Brit. Ass'n for 1865.”—Wallace.
Dr. Thorell “refers to the old Brit. Ass'n Rules with general approval, but differs from them in some important points.”—Ibid.
Dr. Staudinger lays down eight rules that vary from those of the Brit. Ass'n or from Kirby and Thorell in several particulars. And Gemminger and Harold's Cat. Coleopt. differs in the Rules applied from all the others. See Wallace. As to French authors, the following extract of a letter to me from a distinguished English Éntomologist will show how heterodox is their position:—“The chief confusion in generic Nomenclature is owing to the French, who consistently ignore or alter every thing done in other countries, on purpose to force their own names on the world in place of others.”
* I notice that Mr. Scuddler speaks of the “insufficiency of their generic descriptions” being “the reproach of Lepidopterists.” Mr. Wallace, on the other hand, asserts that the definitions of a Westwood, or of a Doubleday, are “careful and elaborate.” I was much struck on reading these words in Cope's Origin of Genera, page 6:—“The reader will often find introduced into diagnoses of genera characters which indicate nothing of this sort; “and these, “adjacent genera of the same series differ from each other but by a single character.” From which it may be inferred that inordinate length of generic description is not commendable, and is not properly attainable.