Recent Ornithological Publications. 351 



from the German, and " brought out by two good friends of ' The 

 Ibis/ " This list, though in some points it does not quite meet 

 our approval, we regard as certainly the most complete and the 

 most satisfactory of all that have yet appeared, and likely to be 

 of great assistance to the students of the European Ornis. The 

 species are divided into three categories : — 



No. 

 Species breeding in, or regularly visiting, Europe. . . . 420 



Accidental visitors 103 



Varieties commonly considered as species 55 



578 



And, besides these, those which rest on doubtful authority, so 

 far as their occurrence in Europe is concerned, are inserted in 

 their proper places, but marked with notes of interrogation. 

 This is a very convenient arrangement ; and another advantage 

 of the present list over its predecessors is, that the names of 

 the families extraneous to Europe are inserted in their places, 

 so that we get a better idea of the deficiencies of European 

 ornithology than is usually presented to us. While according 

 this praise, however, we feel bound to mention certain ob- 

 jections to Prof. Blasius's system of nomenclature as here 

 adopted. These are (1) his use of specific names given by 

 authors anterior to Linnaeus — such as those of Brisson, Ray, 

 and others, who were no binominalists, and have no claim to 

 have their appellations employed in a binominal system ; (2) his 

 refusal to use names originally proposed as specific in a generic 

 sense*. This practice renders obligatory the employment of 

 many generic terms which are either new or in little use, and 

 introduces a fresh element of discord among natui-alists. These 

 are direct infractions of the code of laws of nomenclature put 

 forward by the British Association for the Advancement of 

 Science, which we consider the best set of rules ever drawn up 

 for the guidance of naturalists on this difficult subject. There 



* Such as Locustella for the Locustella rayi, which is called Parnopia (!) 

 locustella ; Cisticola for the C. schcenicola, Bp., which is termed Schanuola 

 cisticola; Franeolinus ior the F. vtilgaris, which, is called Chatopus franco- 

 linus, &e. 



