Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature 281 PROPOSED VALIDATION UNDER THE PLENARY POWERS OF "OSMERUS" (CLASS ACTINOPTERYGU) AS OF SUBGENERIC STATUS AS FROM LINNAEUS, 1758 (PROPOSED VALIDATION OF AN ERRONEOUS ENTRY ON THE "OFFICIAL LIST OF GENERIC NAMES IN ZOOLOGY" MADE BY THE RULING GIVEN IN " OPINION " 77) By FRANCIS HEMMING, C.M.G., C.B.E.. Secretary to the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. (Commission's reference : Z.N.(S.) 564) The present application is concerned with the correction of an erroneous entry on the Official List of Generic Names in Zoology in relation to the reputed generic name Osmerus Linnaeus, 1758 (Class Actinopterygii) made by the Ruling given in Opinion 11 (1922, Smithson. misc. Coll. 73(No. 1) : 71 — 73). 2. The error referred to above was discovered in the course of a preliminary survey of the entries so far made on the Official List, carried out by myself in the period 1943 — 1944, for the purpose of estimating the amount of work required before it would be possible to publish a volume containing particulars of aU entries so far made on that List. The error in question is exactly similar to that which was detected in relation to the reputed generic name Cerco-pithecus Linnaeus, 1758 (Class MammaUa), placed on the Official List by the Ruling given in Opinion 104. In each case the Commission accepted as a vahdly published generic name, a term which had been used by Linnaeus in 1758 in the nominative plural to distinguish a group of species assigned by him to some other genus. At the time when the foregoing Opinions were adopted, there existed no authoritative ruling as to the status of terms such as Osmeri and Cercopitheci as used by Linnaeus to denote groups of species below the genus-level, such terms being rejected by some workers but accepted by others. It was not untU 1936 (Smithson. misc. Coll. 73(8) : 1 — 2) that an Opinion {Opinion 124) was published which put an end to this old controversy. By the Ruling so given which was based upon a decision taken by the Commission at its Session held at Padua in 1930 terms of the type discussed above were ruled to have no status of avaUabUity as from Linnaeus, 1758. The Com-mission recognised that in certain cases this ruling might lead to undesirable name-changing and added a rider to its ruling intimating its wiUingness to consider apphcations for the validation vmder the Plenary Powers of terms of this type. 3. When in Opinion 124 it settled the question of principle involved, the Commission overlooked the fact that in the two instances discussed above it BuU. zool. Nomencl. Vol. 11, Part 9. December 1955.
Proposed validation under the plenary powers of Osmerus (Class Actinopterygii) as of subgenerie status as from Linnaeus, 1758 (proposed validation of an erroneous entry on the Official List of Generic names in Zoology made by the ruling given in Opinion
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