XX INTRODUCTION 



may be remarked that when in 1878 a Committee 

 of the British Ornithologists' Union was formed 

 *' to draw up a List of British Birds in accordance 

 with the most approved principles of modern 

 classification," the Committee did me the honour 

 to include the first edition of this "Handbook" 

 amongst the eight works selected for reference, 

 and it was gratifying to find, when their " List of 

 British Birds" was printed in 1883, that the 

 majority of the names which I had employed were 

 approved and adopted, while in a few cases where 

 a change was made, as, for example, in the case 

 of the Purple Sandpiper (see p. 189), I was sub- 

 sequently able to show that the alteration proposed 

 was not warranted by the facts. 



The increasing practice of changing well-known 

 names for newly discovered ones on the ground of 

 priority, I regard as a misfortune to science ; for 

 there is no finality in such a proceeding, and never 

 likely to be.^ It seems to me far less confusing and 

 embarrassing to adhere to names with which most 

 naturalists have been for years familiar, than to 

 adopt others which, to the majority of people, must 

 be quite unknown. Moreover, having in my first 



1 In 1872 I thought otherwise, and then hoped that a gradual 

 acceptance of the Rules for Zoological Nomenclature devised by a 

 Committee of the British Association might have led to tlie general 

 adoption of a uniform system. But I had then no notion of the 

 lengths to which changes of name would be carried, and the subse- 

 quent experience of thirty years has convinced me of the futility of 

 attempting, to carry out such a scheme as that proposed, which it is 

 now evident can only result in hopeless confusion. 



