102 Prof. Newton on the Assignation 



but occasionally occurring there. Had tlie bird been a Tawny 

 Owlj one would think he would have recognized its specific 

 identity with that which is so common in the Swedish woods. 

 Besides this, though in the 1 746 edition of the ' Fauna ' he 

 had cited as the same as this bird the '' Ulula ' of Gesner, 

 Aldrovandus, Willughby, and Ray, in his subsequent edition 

 of the same work (1761) he substituted for these references 

 the '' Aluco " of the last two authors, and of Albin, who had 

 in the mean time published a recognizable figure ; and there 

 cannot be a doubt of their Aluco being the Barn-Owl. Be 

 that as it may, the S. aluco of Linnseus is not (as I unfortu- 

 nately said it was) the type of his genus Strix, nor of Bris- 

 son's, but the S. stridula is the type of both. 



Now the evidence as to what must be deemed the original 

 type of the Linnsean genus Strix is either " perfectly clear 

 and indisputable''*, or it is not. From what I have above 

 urged I think it may be regarded as clear. One cannot doubt 

 what is meant by the Strix of Gesner, Aldrovandus, Wil- 

 lughby, Ray, and Brisson. Switzer, Italian, Englishmen, 

 and Frenchman agree. Was the Swede, coming after them 

 and quoting them all, likely to have intended that a new 

 meaning should be attached to the word by his use of it with- 

 out indicating that such was the case ? If an ornithologist 

 of the present day had the power of questioning Linnaeus as 

 to which species, according to modern notions, he would de- 

 signate the type of his genus Strix, who can doubt what his 

 answer would be ? " Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ah om- 

 nibus — id accepi.". 



But supposing this view of the case to be disallowed, owing 

 to the difficulty of obtaining any answer from the great de- 

 parted, and the evidence as to the Linnsean type be deemed 

 inconclusive, then, in the words of the British- Association 

 Codef, "the person who first subdivides the genus may affix 



the first and third, which are equal ; but the difierence between all three 

 is not much. On the other hand, in the Tawny Owl the first primary 

 is very short, and the fourth is the longest. 



* Rules of Zoological Nomenclature, § 5. 



t Loc. cit. 



