The Zoologist/4th series, vol 2 (1898)/Issue 688/Zoological Nomenclature

by Thomas Roscoe Rede Stebbing

 

ZOOLOGICAL NOMENCLATURE.
REMARKS ON THE PROPOSED INTERNATIONAL CODE.

By Rev. Thomas R.R. Stebbing, M.A., F.R.S., F.L.S., F.Z.S.

 

Many of the proposals of the International Commission^[1] on this subject are so admirably drawn that they have a fair chance of commanding universal acceptance. On some of them public opinion is authorized to differ, since the members of the Commission are themselves not unanimous. By a singular policy at Cambridge the Report was submitted to the Zoological Congress, and in the same breath withdrawn from discussion. Debate was closured before it had begun. This tantalizing course was due apparently to some dread of starting an interminable controversy. It is easy no doubt to have too much of a good thing, but nothing is an unintellectual alternative to too much.

The proposals are divided into rules and recommendations. Nevertheless several recommendations are interpolated among the rules.

On the eighth rule of section I. the members of the Commission are divided. Three of them say, "All grammatical errors must be corrected; at the same time hybrid names are to be retained without emendation." For example, they "correct"

Cuterebra to Cutiterebra, Glossiphonia to Glossosiphonia. But two of the members propose the following form for this rule:

"Barbarisms and solecisms shall be construed (under B. § 3 k) as arbitrary combinations of letters, and cannot be rejected or emended because of faulty construction. Hybrid names are to be avoided, but when once published are not to be rejected."

The minority, it will be seen, include in their rule a recommendation. Apart from that, theirs is by far the more desirable form. It should surely be the object of an International Code to interfere with individual liberty as little as possible, and to protect accepted names from any change that can be avoided. But in correcting names which may be considered to offend against grammar or philology, more inconvenience than advantage is likely to arise. A longer name, as in the examples quoted, will often have to be substituted for a shorter one. The practical nuisance of this will be well understood by those who have to write labels for small bottles and glass slips. It is also contrary to the tendency of language, which is constantly condensing instead of expanding its forms—reducing, for instance, the five syllables of "Mea domina" to the monosyllabic "Ma'am," or "Mum," or "M'm." The zoologist need not encourage the geographer to change back Brighton into Brighthelmstone. By correction a name will sometimes receive a different initial, as in the change of Oplophorus to Hoplophorus or of Upogebia to Hypogebia, which is apt to be very confusing when an index has to be consulted. The principle of priority is weakened when the original form of a name is relinquished not in the interests of science, but of scholarship. On the other hand, it is so easy to let the names alone, carrying with them their small but interesting touches of autobiography, and no possible harm is done if we do leave to the polished scholar some little occasion for chuckling over us untutored sons of science.

In section III., the second rule begins by declaring that "Specific names are of three kinds: a. Adjectives which must agree grammatically with the generic name." On this it may be diffidently asked whether it would not be simpler to regard all generic names in zoology as masculine? This would avoid any necessity for changing the termination of a specific name on its transfer from one genus to another. It would put an end to a frequent confusion arising between Latin feminine and Greek neuter forms which happen to have the same vowel-ending. The most sensitive ear need not be offended, since Agricola, Aurelia, Cyphostoma, under the present rule, require an adjective respectively in the masculine, the feminine, the neuter. An animal does not become more one gender than another because of its name, and the grammar of the Greeks has wisely recognized what is called "the construction according to the sense."

The third kind of specific names is said to be: "c. Substantives in the genitive, such as those given in dedication to persons or groups of persons." To this is appended the remark, "The genitive is formed by adding an i to the exact name of the person, if a man; an æ in case the person is a woman." Without further explanation, therefore, we might have two such species as Felis Johnsoni and Felis Johnsonæ. But this can scarcely be intended.

The third rule of this section, according to three members of the Commission, should read thus: "While it is desirable to avoid the repetition of the generic name as a specific name (Perdix perdix, Trutta trutta), such repetition is not sufficient grounds for rejecting or changing either the generic or the specific name. The same principle applies to the repetition of the specific name as subspecific or varietal name." The minority say, "Specific names, when used as generic, must be changed."

The following form is offered as an alternative: In future, specific names within a genus may not be used for naming its subdivisions; as regards the past, the name of the species which has supplied a generic name shall be that which was given to it by the author who placed it in the new genus to which its specific name was applied. For example, if Tetrao perdix, Linn., at the institution of the genus Perdix had been called Perdix perdix, that would be the name to be retained; but as it was in fact called Perdix cinerea, the very name used by Aldrovandi and other pre-Linnean authors, that name will happily prevail. This rule, if accepted, will keep us from tinkering at the work of our predecessors by ex post facto regulations.

In section IV., rule 3 finds the Commission once more divided, on the question of defining who is the author of a species. For the paragraph in dispute, the following form is suggested: — The author of a species shall be that person who—a. First publishes the description of the species, with names in conformity with Rule 1. Should the description and names be at first publication incorporated in the work of another writer, such writer will himself be deemed author of the species unless he attests that he is quoting the description as well as the names from another authority. Paragraphs b, c, d would follow as in the proposal of the majority.

On the one hand, the man who has had the trouble of examining and describing a species has much more right to be regarded as the "author" than one who has merely suggested a name. On the other hand, an author should not be deprived of his credit because his work happens to be incorporated in another man's publication. The majority of the Commission append a recommendation—for it can scarcely be intended for a rule—that the name of the author should follow the specific name "without the interposition of a comma." There is nothing to be said against this except that sometimes an author's name may come into a ludicrous combination with an uncomplimentary remark intended for the Snake, or the Cockroach, or some other low-minded species. Another recommendation, posing as a rule, prescribes the use of italics for distinguishing between the names of the species and the name of the author. It would be better to proscribe italics than to prescribe them. They are less legible than many other forms of type, and, as old books show, they are the worst in wear.

Coming now to the recommendations, specified as such, the third deals at great length with words which may be taken as generic names, and mentions first: "a. Greek substantives, for which the rules of Latin transcription should be followed." Many examples are given.

In regard to transcription, a word may be said in behalf of the English-speaking peoples. Our pronunciation vividly accentuates the difference between a long vowel and a short one, yet we have but one symbol for both sounds throughout our vowel system. There is nothing in the form of the letters to prevent a man's saying Amphibōla, Hydrophīlus, or Hippopotāmus. How much the young have suffered through false quantities is an untold sum of human misery. But they harass not boys alone. Of university men who acted classical plays in his day, Milton says bluntly, "They mispronounced, and I misliked; and, to make up the atticism, they were out, and I hissed." The men he derided were victims to tortures of the tongue, which, as far as speakers are concerned, "The bad affright, afflict the best."

Long ago an absurdly simple remedy was proposed for application to scientific names. It directed that the penultimate syllable of a name should be accented when that syllable is long, and the ante-penultimate when the penultimate is short. The International Commission would do a thankworthy act by giving the sanction of their authority to this ancient but much neglected proposal.

In the transcription of Greek diphthongs it would, as many think, be far better to retain ei, ai, and oi; ei because there at least the quantity could no longer be doubtful, but ai and oi because the italic printing of œ and æ causes constant confusion. Thus, for example, μαἳρα, the bright sparkle, is confounded with μοἲρα, gloomy fate. Pareiasaurus, the lizard with a cheek, is a complete linguistic puzzle when written Pariasaurus. The ending idæ, in names of zoological families, is often pronounced with a long penultimate, as if from the Greek ειδης, as in Atreides. But here a misconception has evidently crept in. The penultimate is only long in such words as Atreides because it is a contraction of two short syllables into one long one. In Æacides from Æacus and in similar forms the penultimate is short. But knowledge of what is right, and uniformity in usage can never become general until in these matters we are assisted by the art of the printer.

Among consonants the transcription of k into c appears very undesirable, as it inevitably results in mispronunciation, χαρκινος for instance, being changed vocally into Carsinus.

Some minor points of criticism may be left over to a future opportunity. But, before concluding, I shall venture to submit one or two questions to the learned authors of these recommendations. Is it quite fair to expect those whom they will concern in all parts of the world to be acquainted either with "the rules adopted by the Geographical Society of Paris," or with the geography of the Romans and of Latin writers of the Middle Ages? Why, too, should any notice be taken, in so important a document, of the trivial economy aimed at in abbreviations of authors' names? These absurd curtailments remind one of the time when the sayings and doings of Pitt and Fox were recorded as the words and deeds of Mr. P-tt and Mr. F-x, and when "the" was "y^e," with other teasing stinginesses in printing. In the interests of this useless system the zoologist is invited to carry about a list of abbreviations proposed in one country, enlarged in another, imperfect at its birth, and with every year of its existence bound to become more so, and this, forsooth, in order that the printer may make Lesson Less., make A. Müll, of Auguste Müller, turn Sowerby into Sow., and make Stingelin Sting.

As illustrating the difficulty of the whole subject, it is interesting to note that the five distinguished men on the Commission failed to come to an agreement on three topics, and that on each occasion the majority was differently composed.

 

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1. See the 'Annals and Magazine of Natural History,' ser. 7, vol. ii. p. 181 (1898), and the Report submitted to the International Zoological Congress at Cambridge last August.