VOL. IX.] LETTERS. 55 



had been done before, but also the varioiis Hirimdinidce. His action 

 would have been acceptable and irreproachable had not Gray, in 

 1840, regarded H. rustica as the type of Hirundo. According to 

 Opinion 02 this would be acceptable, though Forster had already 

 made H. rustica the type of his Chelidon. In my opinion, however, we 

 have in this case to look upon the facts in a different light. 



Forster created the new genera Riparia and Chelidon. The former 

 has now been universally adopted, and we would sail a clear course 

 if we also adopted Chelidon (type H. rustica) and Hirundo in a restricted 

 sense, type urbica, as I have done. Gray's action of 1840 should 

 in this case be rejected, because he was in ignorance of Forster's work, 

 or disregarded it. Gray made riparia the type of Cotyle, though it was 

 already the type of Riparia ; he made bicolor the type of Chelidon Boie, 

 though Chelidon had been created before Boie, the type being rustica, 

 and if we follow Gray there is no genus to embrace urbica, so that 

 later authors had to invent for the latter the new names Delichon 

 and Chelidonaria. This was certainly never Gray's view, who, in my 

 opinion, made a bhmder of his subfamily Hirundinincp and should 

 therefore — in this case — not be followed, and Forster's clear and 

 simple action, with the genera Hirundo, Chelidon and Riparia be 

 preferred to Gray's Hirundo (in another sense), Cotyle {=Riparia), a 

 new, later name, for urbica, and Chelidon in the sense of a synonym of 

 Tachycineta of 1850 ! 



I repeat once more : — 



Forster 1817 : Hirundo with urbica. 



Chelidon with rustica. 



Riparia with riparia. 

 Gray 1840 : Hirundo with rustica. 



Cotyle {^Riparia 1817) with riparia. 



Chelidon {=^ Tachycineta 1850) with bicolor. 



No genus for urbica. 



Which is preferable ? Undoubtedly the former, and this view 

 should be adopted in order to secure the simpler and less complicated 

 nomenclature of Forster on the plea that it was erroneously disregarded 

 by Gray, whose action, in this case, was irresponsible and wrong. 



COLYMBUS. 



It is quite true that the List drawn up by the special committee 

 appointed by the International Commission has not been further 

 endoi-sed, becavise there has been no opportunity for doing so. But 

 the contention that Gray fixed the type of Colymbus 1758, as con- 

 structed by Messrs. Mathews and Iredale {Ibis 1913, pp. 217, 218) is 

 quite arbitrary. There is no reason to suppose that the A.O.U. 

 Committee overlooked that Gray, in 1855, had selected a type for 

 " Colymbus Linne 1735." If Gray stated " Colymbus Linne 1735 

 nee 1766," we must rigidly follow this, and have no right to suppose 

 that Gray considered Colymbus of 1735 to be the same as Colymbus 

 of 1758. Gray did not consider the tenth edition at all, as a rule, 

 because he, like all his contemporaries, discarded it in favour of the 

 12th, which they declared to be the corrected and enlarged tenth 

 edition, and the final work of its aiithor. The genus Colymbiis of 1766 

 is the same as that of 1758, only that its author (rather erroneou.sly) 

 added some forms formerly placed (and much more correctly) in 

 Alca. Therefore the type oi Colym,biis 1758 remained formally without 

 a designated type, and the action of the B.O.U. Committee in 188G 

 is valid. 



