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conglomerate of species and sulispecips— surh as Hiere are not a few — are separated, 

 mistakes are often made, becanse a wrong form is taken as the " tyjiical " one ; but 

 such errors would be avoided if the original " habitat " were sufficiently considered. 

 If no such one is given, the first anthor who " splits " the form up has the right to 

 accept one; and this right we may logically also claim in cases where we have not 

 named a new form. 



The plan of investigating the original diagnosis and " habitat," which was first 

 proposed for this article by Berlepscb, has taken a considerable amount of time and 

 labour ; but it has not been in vain in our case, as it resulted in our being obliged 

 to reject several names hitherto in common use, because they were Ijascd on errors ; 

 and we hope it will lie of use for future workers too, especially for those who are not 

 able to refer so freely to the existing literature as we have done. As it is, the 

 libraries of the Rothschild and Berlepsch Museums together have supplied almost 

 every work referred to. 



We have carefully comjiarcd the specimens from the Orinoco region witli the 

 series in the Berlepsch and Rothschild Museums, Hartert lias made several journeys 

 to London for comparing types and other skins in the British Museum, and 

 Berlepsch had the loan of types from Vienna, Berlin, and the Heine Museum ; 

 but in many cases it has been impossible to compare material from the original 

 locality. In snch cases we have taken into consideration those specimens from the 

 geographically nearest countries we were able to see. 



Thus we hope that our article will be of some use, although we do not of course 

 dream of claiming freedom from errors. 



In nomenclatorial questions and orthograjihy of names we have adhered strictly 

 to priority, and although our ideas are not quite the same in every detail, we were 

 able to agree in almost every case. This clearly shows that those who pretend that 

 no finality can be reached in nomenclature* are quite in error. It is always the 

 ignorance or disregard of the first publication and the emendation of the sjielling 

 that causes trouble, not the unsophisticated reference to and use of the earliest name 

 as it was and is. — (E. H.) 



* Borne reviewers of modern zoologiral literature aie especially fond of this vague statement. 



