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Show 308 MR. P. L. S C L A T E R O N T H E [Mar. 3 in conformity with a resolution adopted by Section D of the British Association at Newcastle, reprinted the Rules (2). The Committee, of which he was Chairman, was directed to consider what changes, if any, it was desirable to make in them. Certain alterations (six in number in all) were proposed to be made by the Committee, as specified in their Report. This report (3) was finally adopted by the Association in Section D at the Bath Meeting on the 19th September, 1865. It is well to remark, however, that the six proposed alterations of the original Code, although specified at full length in the Report of the Committee, were never incorporated into the text of the Stricklandian Code. In 1878, at the request of the General Committee ! of the British Association, I prepared for publication a new edition of the Stricklandian Code, to which I added the Report, of the Committee appointed at the Bath Meeting. This edition (4) was published for the Association by Murray of Albermarle Street, and copies of it may still be had on application at the offices of the British Association. There are some here on the table. In 1877 the American Association for the Advancement of Science took up the question of Nomenclature and appointed Mr. W. H. Dall to investigate the subject. Mr. Dall made an excellent report, which will be found printed in the volume of the Association's Proceedings for 1878 (5). In 1881 the Societe Zoologique de Prance proposed a Code of Rules prepared by a Committee. These w?ere published at Paris along with a report on the subject prepared by M . Chaper (6). In the following year (1882) the Congres geologique International published a set of Rules on Nomenclature (7). Both these codes were intended to apply to Zoology and Botany alike. The rules in both cases are few in number, but are accompanied by valuable commentaries. They do not materially affect the special points now in question, except in rejecting generic names previously employed either in Zoology or Botany. The highly elaborate and precise Code of Nomenclature which was adopted by the American Ornithologists" Union in 1886, and was published along with the first edition of the ' Check-list of North American Birds' (8), although generally based upon the Stricklandian Rules, deviates from them in several material particulars. The most important of these is, the proposal to commence Zoological Nomenclature with the tenth edition of the ' Systema Naturae' (1758) instead of the twelfth (1766). The operation of this rule, which will be again alluded to presently, has. as is well known, caused very serious differences in the names applied to the same birds by the English and American ornithologists. The American Code of Nomenclature is also in conflict with us upon the two other points which are proposed for special discussion this evening. In 1891 the ' Allgemeine Deutsche Ornithologische Gesellschaft zu Berlin' put forward their Code of Zoological Nomenclature, which was adopted at their General Meeting at Frankfort a. Main 1 See ' Eeport of the British Association,' 1865, p. 25. |
