192 The Nomenclature of Australian Birds. [vor'xxix. 



THE NOMENCLATURE OF AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 



An "Official Check-list of the Birds of Australia" has just been 

 issued by the Royal Australasian Ornithologists' Union, and 

 represents an enormous amount of painstaking work. So long 

 ago as 1903 a committee of the Union was appointed to 

 prepare a check-list which would be authoritative as regards 

 Australian birds. Naturally the work was slow; many diffi- 

 culties were met with, and careful consideration had to be 

 given to the many questions arising as the work went on, the 

 ever-recurring question of priority of naming not being the 

 least. In the report which prefaces the list the method of 

 procedure, and reasons for certain changes, are fully set out, 

 and it is gratifying to find the committee so unanimous in 

 condemning the tendency of some recent writers to found 

 species and sub-species on the most trivial differences, while 

 the use of trinomials is rejected as tending rather to con- 

 fusion than simplicity, and likely to turn the bird-lover from 

 his hobby. The list extends to 88 pages (7 x 4 inches of type), 

 enumerating 751 species and 94 sub-species, 10 of the latter 

 being secondary sub-species, each bird being given a vernacular 

 name. In the main Gould's classification, as amended by 

 the late Dr. Bowdler Sharpe, has been followed, with such 

 alterations as have become necessary by later knowledge of the 

 subject. The list starts with the Emu, Dromaius novcB-hollandics. 

 Lath., and ends with the Lesser White-backed Magpie of 

 Tasmania, Gymnorhina organicum, Gld. With each bird is given 

 the number of the page in Sharpe's " Hand-list of Birds " 

 where further references will be found regarding it. The range 

 through the different Australian States and adjacent islands 

 is also given. In addition to the main list, a provisional list 

 of 78 birds is given, which may later on, if considered advis- 

 able, be admitted as additional names on the Australian list, 

 and a second appendix contains the names of the birds 

 peculiar to Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands. The index con- 

 tains the name of every bird listed, but we think a table 

 of orders and families, showing the classification adopted, would 

 have been a valuable addition. However, the task has l)een 

 a great one, and it is to be hojied that, though every ornithol- 

 ogist may not agree with every determination, so far as Aus- 

 tralian workers are concerned it will ])e adopted as a whole, 

 and thus become the standard of nomenclature for our Aus- 

 tralian species. Perhaps it may not be out of place here to 

 suggest that before the name of any new species which may 

 come to light in future years is published by an author, it 

 should have been sulmiitted to and a]iiM-o\-ed of by the "Check- 

 list Committee," and when this system is adopted for all branches 

 of science there will be some hope of finality in naming. 



