80 GENERAL ORNITHOLOGY. 



for the validity of the classification implied. As this was to ignore the proprietorship of the 

 original describer, it became customary to retain such describer's name in parentheses and add 

 that of the classiiier ; thus, Tardus migratorius Linnaeus ; Planestieus migratorius (Linn.) 

 Bonaparte. The practice still prevails ; it is no more objectionable than any other harmless 

 exhibition of human vanity. The student will find it carefully carried out in my Check List 

 ■of 1873 and 1882, and entirely discarded in the Second and subsequent editions of the present 

 work. 



It would take me too far to go fully into the rules of nomenclature : some few points may 

 be noted. A proper sense of justice to the describers of new genera, species, and subspecies, 

 prompts us to preserve inviolate the names they see fit to bestow, with certain salutary pro- 

 visions. Hence arises the " law of priority." The first name given during or since 1758 is to 

 be retained and used, if it can be identified with reasonable certitude, — that is, if we think we 

 know what the giver meant by it. But it is to be discarded, and the next name in priority of 

 time substituted, if it is "glaringly false or of express absurdity," — as calling an American 

 bird "cafer," or a black one ^^albus." No generic name can be duplicated in zoology, and one 

 once void for any reason cannot be revived and used in any connection. The same specific 

 name cannot be used twice in the same genus. 



In my judgment, the best set of rules for naming objects of natural history ever devised is 

 the Code of Nomenclature promulgated by the American Ornithologists' Union in 1886. Its 

 canons are applicable not only to ornithology, but also to all other branches of zoology. They 

 have acquired the force of statutory regulations in this country, and the student who would be 

 more than an amateur must learn them. He will also do well to obey them until he becomes 

 a professional ornithologist and can afibrd to express opinions of his own. For myself I sub- 

 scribe to the Code iu its entirety, with two exceptions. I will never obey a canon which would 

 oblige me to use a " glaringly false " name, for falsity is foreign to science. Nor shall I ever 

 have anything but contempt for Canon XL. , which would make me misspell a name for no other 

 reason than that it was misspelled in the beginning ; for that would be a matter " of express 

 absurdity, and therefore contemptible." The committee who devised this Code were : EUiott 

 Cones, Chairman ; J. A. Allen, Robert Ridgway, William Brewster, and H. W. Henshaw. 



The Actual Classification of Birds has undergone radical modification of late years, 

 though the same machinery is employed for its expression. This is as would be expected, 

 seeing how profoundly the theory of Evolution has affected our principles of classification, how 

 completely the morphological has replaced other systems, and how steadily our knowledge of 

 the structure of birds, and their chronological relations, has progressed. Nevertheless, the 

 ornithological system is still iu a transition state, and the classification implied by my arrange- 

 ment of North American birds in the present work must be regarded as tentative and provis- 

 ional. In the original edition of the Key the classification was vitiated at the outset by physi- 

 ological considerations, 1 and in scmie other respects was open to decided improvement, as I 

 trust the present edition shows. The table given on a succeeding page will afi"ord the student 

 a C0U2) d'oeil of the groups, from subclass to subfamily, which I have been led to adopt ; it 

 represents, as far as it goes, a classification of birds at large. The principal groups, higher 

 than families, which are absent from the North American Fauna, are : the whole of the 

 RatitcE, or Struthious birds ; the Bromceognathce, embracing the South American Tinamous ; 

 the Sphenisci, Penguins of the Southern Hemisphere, and several small superfamily groups be- 

 longing in the vicinity of the Columbine, Gallinaceous, Lemicoline, and Anserine birds. 



As to the primary divisions of Aves, it seems certain that these must be made with special 



> In primarily dividing birds into Anes aereir, Avfs terrestres, and Aves aqtiaticcr, after Lilljeborg, I should do myself 

 the justice to say, however, that the fact that these divisions did not rest upon morphological characters of any conse- 

 quence was expressly stated (pp. 8 and 276 of the orig. ed.). 



