British Bees / An Introduction into the Studies of the Natural History and Economy of the Bees Indigenous to the British Isles

by William Edward Shuckard

This was Linnæus, to whom we owe the binomial system, wherein, by means of two words only (the generic or surname, and the specific or baptismal name), the recognition of a species is perpetuated; for Linnæus truly says, “Nomina si nescis, perit et cognitio rerum.”

By a law tacitly admitted, but universally recognized, for the sake of securing to a name its intangibility, no two genera in the same kingdom of nature may be named alike. There is, therefore, if this rule be observed, no fear of similar names coming into collision in the same province, and thus producing confusion. A ready means to prevent the possibility of such mischance is the admirable work which has been published by Agassiz, with the assistance of very able coadjutors, in the ‘Nomenclator Zoologicus,’ which is a list of all the generic names extant in zoology, exhibiting what names are already in use either appropriately or synonymously in this great branch of the natural world, and if this work receive periodically its necessary supplements and additions, no excuse will remain for the repetition of a name already applied. The most defective character in this laborious work, is the frequent incorrectness of its etymology of the names of genera. It would be, perhaps, without such aid, too great a labour to require of the describing naturalist, or it might not be otherwise even practicable for him, to ascertain whether the generic name he purposes to impose be, or not, anticipated. The penalty of its being superseded is understood to attach to the imposition of such a name, for the alteration may be made with impunity, and thereby it becomes degraded to the rank of a mere synonym.

Nomenclature has thus, by the happy invention of Linnæus, been made a matter of the greatest simplicity, conciseness, and lucidity, and to him, therefore, our gratitude is due.

An indispensable branch of nomenclature is Synonymy, which, briefly, is the chronological list of the several names under which species or genera may have been known. This diversity of names has originated in several ways,—from indolence, or ignorance, or excessive refinement. The views of systematists will differ in the collocation of creatures; hence, sometimes what had been previously divided will be recombined, or divisions into further groups be made of what had been before united. Both processes will necessarily produce synonyms; the recombination of what had been separated reduces the names of such groups to the rank of synonyms of the old one from which they have been disjoined. In the latter case the old name will be retained to the typical species merely, and be also made a partial synonym of the names of the new generic groups: or, indeed, it may happen that the same creature has been described generically, unknowingly, by two different persons, about the same time. By another recognized rule in nomenclature, the ‘law of priority,’ the name given by the first describer is accepted, and the other consequently falls to the condition of a synonym.

With respect to specific synonymy, many causes conduce to it; namely, an imperfect description which cannot be clearly recognized, reducing it to that category, with a mark of interrogation appended; subsequent description when want of tact has not discerned the identity of the old one; indolence in looking about for works upon the same subject; inability to obtain access to books wherein they may be described, owing either to their costliness or to their obscurity, or by lying buried in some collapsed journal, or the poverty of our public libraries, etc. etc. But however thus lost sight of, or wilfully ignored, the name still retains vital elasticity, for the describer has not thereby lost his rights, but revives to them with all due justice upon the cessation of this coma. The really culpable among such describers are those who neglect to look around them to ascertain what has been done, and this course is sometimes illicitly adopted to obtain a fleeting and meretricious fame, by the description of ostensibly new species, which critical investigators soon detect to have been long since known and very ably described.

Thus, a complete synonymy, which can almost only come within the province of a monograph, would give, chronologically, the entire history of a species under all the names it has been known by in the several works in which it has been published. Nature is so uniform and stable that Aristotle’s descriptions can be clearly recognized, therefore there is no fear that whatever may have been synonymously, but yet correctly recorded of the economy of a species, can possibly be lost when once registered in the archives of science.

The working out of a correct synonymy is an ungrateful task of much labour, for few appreciate it, and not many use it, although when thoroughly elaborated it is so extremely valuable.

A further rule in nomenclature is, that the generic name must always be a substantive; and it is always desirable that the specific name should be an adjective. In the event of the imposition of a proper name, which is sometimes done to record a private friendship, but improperly so, for it is a distinction due only to promoters of the science, the genitive form must be adopted.

The next grade in ascent from the species is invariably the Genus, for subgenera, like varieties in species, are not uniformly present, but are mere contingencies, even if they do properly exist.

Why some genera abound in species and others are so limited is as difficult to determine as the differing numerical abundance of individuals in species. That long genera (genera numerous in species) may be the result of natural selection, as Mr. Darwin surmises, and the offspring of a common parentage, is contradicted, not merely by peculiar although sometimes slight dissimilarities of habit, combined with size and colour, but also if any lines of demarcation are to be admitted, it is possible, were their generic similitude to be subjected to severe test, they might present characteristics normally discrepant and suggestive of further division, although the habit may be very like.