SIBLEY: ORNITHOLOGY 631 



Taxonomic practices during the early nineteenth century were in accord with 

 the concepts of the time. If a newly acquired specimen differed from the "type" 

 of the most closely related known species it became the type of a "new species." 

 Some authors described each variant as a new species, regardless of the degree 

 or cause of the differences. As collections grew it became apparent that not all 

 the "species" which were being described were of equal rank. The first attempt 

 to reflect differences in the rank of forms below the species level was made by 

 Carl Friedrich Bruch who proposed (1828) that "variations" be designated by 

 a third name added to the Linnean binomial. Fourteen years later, on Septem- 

 ber 23, 1842, at the twentieth annual meeting of the Society of German Natural- 

 ists and Physicians, Bruch (1843) again expounded his ideas before the zoologi- 

 cal section of the society. He used the term "subspecies" and again cited 

 trinominal combinations. At this meeting Hermann Schlegel (b. 1804, d. 1884) 

 was the presiding officer. Whereas Bruch had used ternary nomenclature to 

 designate any relatively slight degree of departure from the "typical," Schlegel 

 soon began to apply it only to geographic variants. His first use of trinominals 

 was in 1844 in the "Aves" section of Siebold's Fauna Japonica. Schlegel, al- 

 though the junior author (with C. J. Temminck), was responsible for the nomen- 

 clature and used such combinations as Pandion haliaetus orientalis (p. 13), Otus 

 scops japonicus (p. 27), and Podiceps ruhricoUis major (p. 122). Schlegel also 

 employed the trinominal in his critical review of European ornithology in 1844. 



The use of trinominals found no protagonists in Europe, and it was in the 

 United States that it first gained general acceptance among ornithologists. Spen- 

 cer Fullerton Baird (b. 1823, d. 1887) had begun the detailed ornithological ex- 

 ploration of North America in 1850 when he became the assistant secretary of 

 the Smithsonian Institution. The survey trips for the Pacific Railroad brought 

 in large numbers of specimens and by 1858 Baird was able to recognize numerous 

 examples of geographic variation in his series. The evidence for general rules 

 of geographic variation was also found by Baird. He noted Bergmann's Rule 

 (body size increases toward the north and decreases toward the south) and in 

 1859 pointed out that the same change takes place in accordance with changes 

 in altitude in the same latitude. Baird also noted that in the southern parts 

 of its range a species tends to show relative increase in bill size and that Pacific 

 Coast specimens of many species were darker than those from inland localities. 

 He was well aware of the tendency for the characters of adjacent differentiated 

 populations to merge (i.e., intergrade) where the margins of their ranges ad- 

 joined. In 1858, with the cooperation of John Cassin and George N. Lawrence, 

 Baird published the famous ninth volume of reports on the Pacific Railroad sur- 

 vey. Under Baird's skillful direction this volume became far more than a mere 

 "report." It was in fact the most important treatise on the systematics and 

 nomenclature of North American birds up to that time and remained so for 

 many years. 



It was Baird's protege, Robert Ridgway (b. 1850, d. 1929), who next applied 

 himself to the problem of the boundary between species and subspecies. AVhen 

 but seventeen years old Ridgway was appointed zoologist to the United States 

 Geological Survey of the 40th Parallel. The expedition went to Panama by ship, 

 crossed the Isthmus, then took another ship to San Francisco. For the next two 

 years young Ridgway collected in the West, returning to Washington in 1869. 



