358 Recently jiublished Oniithological Works. 



XII. — Notices of recent Ornithological Publications. 



[Continued from p. 19-3.] 



26. Allen on the Genera and Subgenera of North-American 



Birds. 



[A List of the Genera and Subgenera of North-American Birds with 

 their Types, according to Article 30 of the International Code of Zoological 

 Nomenclature. By J. A. Allen. Bull, Am. Mus. N. H. vol. xxiv. (1908). 

 50 pp.] 



This is a further excellent disquisition on current questions 

 of nomenclature, so far as they affect birds in the North- 

 American List, and is supplementary to a former paper of 

 Dr. Allen on the same subject (c/. ' Ibis,^ 1907, p. 634). Its 

 main object is to criticize and explain a new rule (Art. 30) 

 of the Nomenclature-Committee adopted at the International 

 Zoological Congress held at Berlin in 1907, which relates to 

 the mode of selecting the types of genera not originally 

 furnished with a type by the authors. A new article, we 

 are told, embraces " all the provisions of the former one 

 restated in greater detail," and appears to be in the main 

 quite in accordance with Dr. Allen's views. 



After an historical resume of the progress of the rules of 

 nomenclature since their initiation by the Code of the 

 British Association in 1842 (which was virtually the work 

 of Strickland), the author devotes several pages to the 

 work done by G. R. Gray, who, in his various ' Lists of 

 the Genera of Birds,' seems have been the first systematist 

 to assign a type for every generic name. This was certainly 

 a great step forward, although Gray made some unfortunate 

 changes in the various editions of his ' List.^ Dr. Allen 

 next proceeds to give a complete List of the genera and 

 subgenera of North- American Birds, and to state the ^^type" 

 of each of them according to the new Code of Nomenclature. 

 We should warn our readers that, if this Code is followed, 

 they must be prepared to accept very startling changes 

 in the names of some of our familiar species. For instance, 

 Plautus is to be the generic name of the Great Auk, 

 and '• Vultur" that of the Condor. The name "Trochilus" 



