Abstract
WERE all taxonomists as familiar with the classical languages as is Sir Herbert Maxwell, mistakes such as he points out would be rarer; but although they appear in Latin guise, generic and specific names need not be evolved from anything but the author's sense of propriety. The name is a label and need have no meaning in itself. The consequence of that, and of the accepted rule of nomenclature that the first legitimate christening holds the field, is that Podiceps, used by Latham in 1789 to designate our grebes, is now the accepted generic name.
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[Letters to the Editor]. Nature 127, 201 (1931). https://doi.org/10.1038/127201d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/127201d0
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