324 Lord Walden on the Cuculidse 



The following list of references to this species may serve to 

 make this paper of some slight practical use : — 



Campethera capricorni, Strickl., Contr. Orn. 1852, p. 155 ; G. 

 R. Gray, List. B. Br. Mus. Picidoi (1868), p. 81. 



Dendromus capricorni, Bonap.,Consp.Vol. Zygodactyl. (1854)* 



P- ^- .... 



Chrysopicus capricorni, Malh., Monogr. Picid. (1862) ii. p. 169. 



Ipagrus capricornis [!J,Cab. & Heine, Mus. Hein. (1863) iv. 



p. 123, note. 



Picus capricorni, Sundev., Consp. Av. Picin. (1866) p. 64. 



Magdaleue College, Cambridge, 

 June 11, 1869. 



XXX. — On the Cuculidse described by Linnaeus and Gmelin, 

 with a sketch of the Genus Eudynamis. By Arthur 

 Viscount Walden, P.Z.S. etc. 



(Plate X.) 



Tt is now a quarter of a century since the rules for zoolo- 

 gical nomenclature were promulgated by the British Association 

 — a period sufficiently long to enable us to judge of their merits by 

 the test of practical experience. How, then, do we now stand ? 

 To what extent have these rules been accepted, more especially 

 the law of priority, by ornithologists at least ? and how have 

 they worked ? To these two questions I believe an answer not 

 altogether unsatisfactory may be given. The spirit of the rule 

 of priority has more or less influenced every recent writer. One 

 or two may have grumbled, ornithological Tories shocked at the 

 revolutionary tendencies of the binomial principle. Some, its 

 most ardent advocates at the time, have since viewed with rather 

 peevish impatience discoveries of titles older than those they had 

 accustomed themselves to regard as the oldest. Yet, on the 

 whole, the endeavour of most ornithologists has been to discover 

 the senior title and to adopt it ; and if, now and then, the dead 

 Fathers have been rather left to take care of themselves, yet, 



* Originally published in ' L'Ateneo Italiano,' no. 8, May 1854 (fide 

 Carus and Engelmann, Bibl. Zoogr. p. 115). 



