Recently published Ornithological Works. 683 



will venture to make a few remarks on it, and to say that we 

 agree with the author in the main. There can be no doubt 

 that geographical forms of widely spread species exist, and 

 that they are worthy of careful study. By far the best way 

 of designating them is the trinomial system, only that we 

 should prefer to call the originally described form " typicus " 

 instead of repeating the specific term : for Merula merula 

 merula is really unbearable. But the trinomial plan lias 

 been discredited amongst many sober and ''old-fashioned'^ 

 ornithologists, owing to the light and easy way in which 

 some of the novi homines create subspecies without sufficient 

 material, sometimes even on a single specimen. As Mr. 

 Hartert himself remarks, it requires much more evidence to 

 found a good subspecies than a good species. A single 

 specimen may be quite sufficient basis for the former^ while 

 for the latter a large series is necessary. And subspecies 

 are, on account of the slighter differences between them, 

 much more matters of individual opinion than the better- 

 defined species. While, therefore, we admit that subspecies 

 must be used in certain cases, we advocate much greater care 

 in their institution. 



115. Le Souef's Visit to Western Australia. 



[A Visit to Western Australia. By D. Le Souef. Victorian Natu- 

 ralist, xvi. p. 185.] 



Mr. Dudley Le Souef sends us a copy of an address to 

 the Field. Natui*alists' Club of Victoria, which contains an 

 account of his visit to Western Australia in October 1899, 

 and of what he saw — botanical and zoological. Several 

 pages are devoted to the birds, which, however, are stated 

 not to be numerous except in certain favoured localities. It 

 is an error, Mr. Le Souef tells us, to suppose that all the 

 Emeus of Western Australia belong to the spotted form 

 named Dromceus irroratus. If this be the case, the so-called 

 species is (as we have long suspected) probably not even 

 a local form or subspecies, but merely a casual variety. 



