40 NovrrATEs Zoologicae XXVT. 1919. 



desert edge, but in places it meets with, and possibly interbreeds with, 

 the latter." 



There is one sentence in Nicoll's article in the Ibis, 1918, p. 742, which I 

 do not understand at all. He says, " Hartert, who has frequently expressed to 

 me personally and also done so in print, that a scientific name on a label is 

 unnecessary." I have surely never said such a thing, and I don't think Nicoll 

 means that exactly. There are perhaps not very many ornithologists who have 

 written more scientific names on labels than I, and for anyone using a collection 

 it is of the greatest value to find the correct scientific names on the labels, and 

 nobody has empha.sized more than I how important it is to write them on the 

 type specimens, and to mark the latter clearly and conspicuously, and for this 

 we have adopted bright-red labels, which is of the greatest convenience and 

 saves a lot of trouble. Probably Nicoll meant to say that I had explained to 

 him that names on labels, unless pubhshed in print, have no standing in nomen- 

 clature, or I might have said that I did not consider it of value that a collector 

 in the field, who has as a rule only his memory to go by, puts a name on a label, 

 or that it is better not to write a name on unless one has compared the specimen 

 in question and has made out what one believes to be the correct name, so as 

 to avoid alterations afterwards. — Vivat, crescat, floreat scientia Oaleridarum ! 



