358 Dr. E. Hartert on the new 



XVIII.— 7%e new B. 0. U. List of British Birds. 

 By Dr. E. Hartert, M.B.O.U. 



This list is truly called a "'revised^' edition of the first 

 B. O. U. List of British Birds, which appeared in 1883. 



The most conspicuous feature of this new edition of the 

 List is naturally the nomenclature, the names of the species 

 beii)g printed in large black type, as headings. Needless to 

 say it is radically different from that of the former list, and 

 a very great advance. In 1883 trinomial nomenclature had 

 not yet found its way into Great Britain, though it was used 

 here and there, often in a curious and inconsistent way, 

 by Seebohm. Moreover the tenth edition of Linnaeus is 

 now recognized as the starting point of nomenclature, in 

 agreement with the practice of American and continental 

 European ornithologists, and as in the ' Hand-list of 

 British Birds,' the ' International Rules of Zoological 

 Nomenclature ' are genei'ally followed. 



This must be welcomed as a great step towards uniformity 

 in nomenclature, which is now the aim of everybody, and 

 also that of the Committee which compiled the List. 



Until 1912 British ornithologists had not generally ac- 

 cepted the tenth edition of Linnaeus. In the greatest work 

 on ornithology, the ' Catalogue of Birds in the British 

 Museum,' it was shunned to the end, only the writer of 

 this review having quoted it in his portion of vol. xvi. 

 Sharpe, in his ' Hand-list of Birds,' also stuck to the 

 twelfth. In 1912, however, appeared the * Hand-list of 

 British Birds ' in whicli the tenth edition of Linnaeus and 

 trinomial nomenclature were adopted throughout, and for 

 the first time in a complete list of British Birds. It is 

 curious that this has not been mentioned in the B. O. U. 

 List, where the ' Hand-list ' has only been quoted in 

 Appendix III. 



In the ' Hand-list ' the authors tried to be absolutely con- 

 sistent, adopting the oldest name in every case ; therefore the 

 jjomenclature of the new B. O. U. List agrees almost entirely 



