( 494 ) 



To re|il;ice RuUina of the Cat. Birds xxiii. p. 74 tlicre appears to be only 

 one claimant, Kunjzona Uonaparte {Comjites liciuliis xliii. p. ;jll',l, 1850), who 

 introduced it as of Ueicheubach, mt\x fasciata Raffles as first species and named 

 as type in the Cat. Birds, loc. cit. 



Page 13 : Genns XXXVII. Galliinda Tiinstall, Oriiith. Brit. p. 3 (1771) 

 vice (ktlliiiula Brisson. 

 ,, „ Genus XXXVIII. Porphi/rio Bonnaterre, Tabl. Ency. Method. Orii. 

 p. xciv (17'.Hi) 

 vice Porphi/rio Brisson. 

 „ 14 : (4onns XLI. Podici'ps Latham, S/t/>/d. (!('i>. Si//i. i. |i. ,".14 (1787) 

 not Podicipcs Lath, (emend.). 



British authors generally have used Podiceps for tlie Grebes, and jnst as 

 consistently has it been rejected by American writers. The reasons given by the 

 latter can be best understood by a quotation from a very recent paper on this 

 subject. Allen {Bull. Amer. M/es. JS'at. Hist. vol. xxiii. p. 2s'.i, 1 Oi »7) stated : " Certain 

 naturalists, more especially the English, have, however, persistently employed 

 Coli/mbm for the Loons and other names for tiie Grebes, clearly without good 

 reason, possibly following Latham, who, in 1787, proposed Podiceps for the Grebes, 

 and adopted Coh/mbiis (Latham nee Linn.) for the Loons"; on p. 290 he added: 

 "Latham's 'Genus LXXIX. Podiceps {Cohjmtnis Linn.)' is a substitute name for 

 Col'piibtis Linnaeus, and consists of what was left of that gronp after the Loons 

 were removed from it by Brisson. It is therefore an exact synonym of the restricted 

 genus Colymbus Brisson of the Check List. From the modern point of view, 

 Latham had no right to reintroduce, on a later jiago, the name Col>/mbu.s (Genus 

 LXXXVI. Cohjmbus Latham) as a new genus for tlie Loons, after making it a 

 synonym of his own genus Podiceps, to say nothing of Brisson's having separated 

 the Loons from ihe Grebes as a distinct genus in 1700, or twenty-seven years 

 before. According to modern usage in other similar cases, Podiceps has no 

 standing, being a inire synonym of an earlier genns." 



Ujion referring to Latham's work I find tiiat the preceding is obviously a 

 misinterjiretation of Latham's action. 



In the Xth Ed. oi the Si/stc ma 2Ca tit rae (p. 13o) Linne included four species 

 under his genns Colymbus (Brisson independently introduced Colymbus for the 

 Grebes : he never subdivided a Tjinncan genus ; lie used the same names as Linne, 

 often with difl'erent significations, as for instance Meryus, which he used for the 

 Divers though Linne had ntilized it for the Mergansers). Linne in his Xllth 

 Edition of the Systema Naturae increased the nuuiber of species under Colymbus 

 to eleven. 



Latham was the first writer to subdivide this genus, and his method was 

 perfectly legitimate, and moreover ijnite intelligible, lie noted fifteen species, 

 but separated the Liuuean genus into three, accepting Uria, for the Guillemots, 

 restricting Cob/mbus io the Divers, and introducing Podiceps for the Grebes. As 

 he worked with the Liunean system he indicated in brackets the Linnean genus 

 in the few instances where he made improvements. This is clearly seen as, when 

 including Sylcia (p. ~S7), Perdix (p. :^00), JS'umenius (p. ~91), and J'lialarojius 

 (p. 294), he noted against each the Linnean ecpiivalents, Motacilla, Tetrao, 

 Scolopax, and Trinqa resjiectively. But such can by no means be called substitute 

 names, as in each case Latham retained the Linnean names for a restricted jiortion 



