■^86 Nelson, Certain North American GallincE. I Oct. 



THE NOMENCLATURE AND VALIDITY OF CERTAIN 

 NORTH AMERICAN GALLINJE. 



BY E. W. NELSON. 



Plates XIV mid XV. 



In 'The Ibis' for April, 1902 (pp. 233-245), Mr. Ogilvie 

 Grant has a paper entitled ' Remarks on the Species of American 

 Gallinae recently described and Notes on their Nomenclature.' 

 In this the author gives characteristic expression to a sweeping 

 condemnation of the recent work done in this group by American 

 ornithologists. Among thirty species and subspecies described 

 or revised under old names by American workers since the publi- 

 cation of Mr. Grant's Volume XXII of the ' Catalogue of Birds in 

 the British Museum ' in 1893 he considers only four worthy of 

 recognition. 



After reading the paper in ' The Ibis' one is prompted to ask if 

 Volume XXII was intended by its author to fix the limit of 

 knowledge in that direction. This is not the first instance, how- 

 ever, in which our critic has differed radically from the views of 

 American ornithologists as shown by his disposal of the com- 

 monly recognized subspecies of the Ruffed Grouse, in the cited 

 Vol. XXII. 



The tone of absolute finality with which he treats the subject 

 in his recent paper would lead the uninitiated to believe that there 

 could be no appeal from his decisions. In reality, however, in a 

 number of instances they contain such a mixture of misstatement 

 and misrepresentation that they would be unworthy of notice 

 except that they might be accepted at face value by those unfa- 

 miliar with the facts. In his recent paper he gives an interesting 

 revelation of the point of view and the methods by which he 

 reaches some of his extraordinary conclusions. No weight is 

 given to the intimate knowledge of the topography and geographic 

 distribution in their territory possessed, usually as the result of 

 years of study and field work, by American ornithologists. On 

 the contrary Mr. Grant appears to approach the subject quite 

 unhampered by any embarrassing knowledge of American geogra- 

 phy and to be quite unaware that distribution and varying physi- 

 cal conditions have any real bearing on American ornithology. 



