NOMENCLATURE OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. » 



The adoption of triuoiuials for the designatiou of nascent species — a 

 direct result of the synthetic method of study which has supplanted the 

 former analytic treatment of the subject — has caused perhaps the great- 

 est difficulty encountered in the compilation of this catalogue, it being 

 in many cases very difficult to decide whether a given form should be 

 treated as having passed the "varietal stage", and therefore to be des- 

 ignated by a binomial, or whether it is yet incompletely differentiated, 

 and to be subordinated in rank by a trinomial appellation.* 



The greatest care has been taken, however, in all doubtful cases of 

 this kind, and previous conclusions (published in " History of North 

 American Birds "t and elsewhere) carefully reconsidered, with the aid of 

 all the material accessible, including many specimens not previously in 

 hand. This reconsideration of Ihe subject has, in not a few cases, re- 

 sulted in a reversal of former opinion, specimens from important local- 

 ities not before represented often deciding the point one way or the 

 other. Every form whose characteristics bear unmistakably the im- 



them as merely the creation of Audubon's brain and pencil. To do the latter, bow- 

 ever, on the imrely negative ground that no one else bas met witb tbem, seems to us 

 not only a gross injustice to bis memory, but, laying aside personal considerations alto- 

 gether, also a most insecure position to take. The type of Ember tza ISpizrQ townsendl, 

 described by Audubon forty-six years ago, remains unique to this day; but since it 

 fortunately exists in an excellent state of preservation, we have, in this case at least, 

 positive evidence of Audubon's good faith. The species may now be extinct, and so 

 may "Cuvier's Kinglet", the "Carbonated" and "Blue Mountain" Warblers, and the 

 "Small-headed Flycatcher"; but we have very strong faith that these "lost" species 

 will eventually repeat the history of several others which for a long time evaded the 

 closest search, like Coturnicidus lecontei (And.), the type specimen of which was lost, 

 and a second example not obtained until 1839, or twenty-six years after the species 

 was first described and figured, while now it is represented by a greater or less num- 

 ber of specimens in all the principal collections in this country; or Centronyx iairdi 

 (And.), which passed through even a worse experience, an eminent ornithologist 

 having the good fortune to obtain more than 75 of this species in less than a year 

 after he bad "ventured to foretell" that "a secoud specimen would never be found"! 

 A case among plants is equally suggestive. We refer to the yellow water-lily {Xymplma 

 Jiava, Lcitn.), figvired for the first time on one of Audubon's bird-plates. Though a 

 conspicuous and easily recognized species, it remained otherwise unknown to botan- 

 ists, and even snub])ed by some, until within a very few years past, when it was 

 rediscovered in Florida (its original station) by the well-known lady botanist Mrs. 

 Mary Treat, who published her discovery, and thus effectually vindicated the great 

 naturalist, in Harper's Magazine (vol. v, p. 3G5). 



*It should not be inferred from our remarks in this connection that we find the use 

 of trinonuals iucouveuieiit in practical application. On the contrary, no other method 

 seems at all adequate to the proper discrimination between isolated and iutergrading 

 forms, and the difficulty in the cases above alluded to arises wholly from the want 

 of sulTicient material to decide the question of iutergradation or the contrary. 



t A History of North American Birds. By S. F. Baird, T. M. Brewer, and R. Ridg- 

 way. Laud Birds. Illustrated by G 4 colored plates and 51)3 woodcuts. 3 vols., royal 

 4to. Boston, Little, Brown, & Co. 1874. 



