The Log from the Sea of Cortez

by John Steinbeck

Verrill, in The Actinaria of the Canadian Arctic Expeditions, broke out in protest. He cries, “Prof. McMurrich has endeavored to restore for this species a name (senilis) used by Linnaeus for a small indeterminable species very imperfectly described in 1761.... The description does not in the least apply to this species. He described the thing as the size of the last joint of a finger, sordid, rough, with a sub-coriaceous tunic. Such a description could not possibly apply to this soft and smooth species ... but it would be mere guesswork to say what species he had in view.... Moreover, aside from this uncertainty, most modern writers have rejected most of the Linnaean names of actinians on account of their obscenity or indecency. All this confusion shows the impossibility of fixing the name, even if it were not otherwise objectionable. It should be forgotten or ignored, like the generic names used by Linnaeus in 1761, and by some others of that period, for species of Actinia. Their indecent names were usually the Latinized forms of vulgar names used by fishermen, some of which are still in use among the fishermen of our own coasts, for similar things.” This strange attempt to “clean up” biology will have, we hope, no effect whatever. We at least have kept our vulgar sense of wonder. We are no better than the animals; in fact in a lot of ways we aren’t as good. And so we’ll let the book fall as it may.