Vol. xxiii] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 27!
Notes and News.
ENTOMOLOGICAL GLEANINGS FROM ALL QUARTERS
OF THE GLOBE.
STRICT PRIORITY IN NOMENCLATURE OR NoTf It is not without mis-
givings that I signed the statement favoring nomina conservanda. \
signed it because it clearly means, not sanction to individual initiative
in the adoption or rejection of names, but mutual agreement expressed
through properly constituted official action. My misgivings grow out
of two considerations: One, in the present unintegrated state of
organization of biological science there is no satisfactory means of
getting opinion. I take it, this referendum vote, now proceeding at
home and abroad, will show how far existing nomenclatural agencies
have come from representing the opinion of zoologists at large. Two,
the proposal, if successful in allaying the most pressing causes of pres-
ent confusion, may tend to perpetuate the burden of nomenclature,
which would still be too grievous to be permanently borne.
I am moved to sign the statement by these considerations : The
confusion is growing ever more confounded with divers and sundry
applications and extensions of the law of priority, and I would like to
see saved: (i) Names of genera that are types of families, thereby
saving the family names. (2) Names of genera that are bound up
with important monographs, and that must continue in use in mor-
phology, ecology, or other branches of biology. (3) Names of species
well known in popular literature, in dealers' catalogues, etc.
In the second place, I think that the names likely to be thus conserv-
ed are those that no rational body would wish to sacrifice under any
plan, and in the third place, I shall live in the hope that there may
come another lucid interval when further progress by mutual agree-
ment may be made. JAMES G. NEEDHAM.
I am giving my preference for strict priority. It is a bit unfair to
have the question put in such an unqualified way because the nomen-
clatural commissions of succeeding zoological congresses have not stood
by the code as originally devised. Every change and qualification that
has been adopted has simply made matters worse by introducing con-
tradictions. If at every congress the rules^ are going to be changed it
will be much better to ignore them and follow the dictates of one's own
conscience. I am for a logical and sane application of priority. I can-
not accept genera without species, like Meigen's of 1800. These must
date from the time they had species included in them and be credited
to the person who first did so.
A word regarding your list of names to be conserved in the last
number of the NEWS. As I have understood it, these lists are solicited
from "specialists" in their respective groups. Some of us who are
working in these groups and are confronted by some of these names
BioStor
