76 PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



had simply become a uecessity. Coues's "Key," as the less voluminous 

 work, was published (1872) before the '' History," thus becoming the 

 first list of iSTorth American birds in which trinomiuals are generally 

 and systematically applied. In the "Key" we meet 1 trinominal for 

 every 4.0 binominals. 



The history of trinominalism in North American ornithology after 

 that date is familiar to every one. We all know how it, like many nov- 

 elties in the beginning, was carried too far, good species being reduced 

 to varieties on insufficient evidence, or on no evidence whatever, the 

 mere supposition of iutergradation, in many cases, being enough to bring 

 the change about, while a more recent time has witnessed a sound re- 

 action and a more rigorous application of Allen's golden rule, " the test 

 of intergradation " being now thus interpreted, that no reduction of a 

 species shall take place unless the intergradation is clearly established. 

 In that, as in so many other respects,* E. Ridgway's Nomenclator of 

 1881 was a great progress. The proi)ortion in the latter between tri- 

 nomiuals and binominals is as 1 to 4^. 



In order to show how close the American trinomiualists come to their 

 European predecessors, the proportional numbers are put together in 

 the following table: 



ScLlegel (List of European Birds, 1844) . . 1 trinominal to 18 binominals. 

 Blasius (List of European Birds, 18G2).. 1 

 Dubois (List of European Birds, 1871) ... 1 



Cones (Key, 1872) 1 



Eidgway (ISTomenclator, 1881) 1 



It isi)lain from the above that the ornithological trinominalism cannot 

 be spoken of as " the American idea." 



But also in other directions Sundevall has exercised a great influence 

 ou the so-called "American school." He was the vigorous and persistent 

 advocate of Linnteus's tenth edition (1758) as the starting point of zoo- 

 logical nomenclature, a view now accepted by almost all American or- 

 nithologists, and it is his system — amended and somewhat changed by 

 his countryman. Prof. W. Lilljeboig — which is the arrangement adopted 

 by the Smithsonian Institution, and still met with, with some altera- 

 tions in the details, in the publications of Cones and of Eidgway, and 

 consequently of most other American writers. I do not see how the 

 name " the American school" can be maintained in view of these facts. 



Nevertheless there is a feature in which the American writers after 

 1858 differ from their European brethren, both English and Continental, 

 and it is this ])eculiarity which led me on a i)revious page to adopt the 

 name " the Bairdiau school," as Professor Baird most certainly was the 

 originator of this particular feature. I shall try to express what I 

 mean by giving an example. When treating of two forms and their 



* As for instance, in doing away •with the cumbersome " var." between the specific 

 and subspecitic name. 



