B. 0. U. List of British Birds. 361 



and all the British Titmice ? Of the rejected forms there 

 may be one or two about which doubts may exist, but nearly 

 all of them are quite as distinct as many of the admitted 

 British subspecies. 



In opposition to recent American authors and the com- 

 pilers of the 'Hand-list/ Pallas' names in Vroeg's Catalogue 

 have not been adopted, because " the committee resolved 

 not to recognize these names as being by an anonymous 

 author." It is, however, certain that Pallas wrote the 

 " Adumbratiuncula " to Vroeg's Catalogue, aud no para- 

 graph exists in the rules of nomenclature under which these 

 names can be rejected. It does not seem admissible for the 

 committee to adopt their own rules, and a step towards 

 uniformity has thus been neglected. 



On the other hand, it is quite correct to reject Oken's 

 supposed generic names in the ' Isis,' 1817, p. 1183. It is 

 difficult to understand why the A.O. U. accepted these 

 names, as they were " not described in accordance with the 

 rules laid down by the International Commission " (List 

 Brit. B. p. 383) . 



The spelling of the name of the British Song-Thrush, 

 which was called clarkei, has been altered to clarkii, and it 

 has been stated that it " should be clarkii." Evidently the 

 committee is of opinion that the name of a person, after 

 whom a species is named, should first be latinized, and then 

 put in the genitive. This was formerly practised by many, 

 and perhaps by most writers, but it has been given up long 

 ago. Article 14 c of the International Rules of Zoological 

 Nomenclature reads as follows : — " If the name is a modern 

 patronymic, the genitive is always formed by adding, to the 

 exact and complete name, an i if the person is a man, or 

 an ffi if the person is a woman, even if the name has a latin 

 form ; it is placed in the plural if the dedication involves 

 several persons of the same name. Examples : Cuvieri, 

 Mobiusi, Nunezi, Meriance, Sarasinorum, Bosi (not Bovis), 

 Salmoni (not Salmonis)." 



So it is clear, that — if it was permitted to alter the spelling 

 of any specific name — sharpii should rather be altered to 



SER. X. — VOL. III. 3 B 



