Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 2 (1898).djvu/131

Rh my belief in the advisability of adopting the so-called "Scomber-scomber principle" on the score of its logicalness, simplicity, and exactness, the readiness with which the proper name of any species may be found under its guidance, and the exact indication it gives as to which is the type-species of a given genus. It unfortunately gives rise to some ugly compounds, although Glis glis or Myotis myotis are not so bad; but aesthetic considerations, full as they are of the personal equation, can hardly be allowed to have a preponderating influence in so prosaic a subject as nomenclature. Moreover, it so happens that of the animals to which Scomber-scomber names apply, several of the best known would still have strange and unfamiliar terms belonging to them even if the principle were rejected. Thus we should have Meles europæus, not M. taxus (which was based on the American Badger), and Vulpes alopex, not V. vulgaris; while the problem of what the name of the Polecat should be, if not Putorius putorius, is one which I have as yet quite failed to solve. There would therefore be no gain in the abolition of this much-abused principle so far as familiarity with the resulting names is concerned. In his editorial introduction to Lydekker's 'British Mammals' Dr. Bowdler Sharpe has also advocated the same principle.

In the following list the Cetaceans are omitted, for, while there is probably but little wrong with their nomenclature, I have not worked at them sufficiently to care to be responsible for their names. It may, however, be noted that two of them—Orca orca, the Killer, and Phocœna phocœna, the Porpoise—take Scomber-scomber names; while it is evident that on a principle about preoccupied names nearly universally accepted, the Lesser Rorqual cannot bear a name based on "Balæna rostrata," Fabricius, 1780, when there was already a Balæna rostrata, Müller, 1776 (now Hyperoodon rostratus), in existence. Its name should apparently be Balænoptera acuto-rostrata, Lacépède. Finally, the Pilot Whale, whose generic name was originally formed in the feminine gender, should be called Globicephala melæna instead of Globicephalus melas, the universal rule being to alter the gender of the specific name to suit the generic, and not vice versâ.