A.OO Allen, Status of Certain S-wainsonian Genera. fo t 



Repecting Ammodramus Swainson, Mr. Oberholser says: 

 " Since the term .... belongs to Coturniculus, as already shown, 

 another name is required for the group to which the former has 

 been applied, and as there is none such available, it may be called 

 Ammospiza, . . . . " Under Coturniculus, on a preceding page, he 

 says: "An earlier name for Coturniculus Bonaparte is found in 

 Ammodramus Swainson, the real type of which is Ammodramus 

 bimaculatus — not, as commonly considered, Fringilla caudacuta 



Wilson (= Oriolus caudacutus Gmelin) The forms of this 



group will be therefore once more in possession of their former 

 generic designation, .... " This case is, as he says, "precisely 

 similar to those of Xiphorhynchus and Tiaris, since the first use of 

 Ammodramus is in the original description of Ammodramus bimac- 

 ulatus, the western continental form of Ammodramus savannarum 

 (Gmelin), antedating by several months the publication of an arti- 

 cle wherein Fringilla caudacuta Wilson is given as the type." 



For many years prior to the publication of the first edition of 

 the A. O. U. Check-List (1886) Ammodramus was almost univer- 

 sally restricted to the A. caudacutus-maritimus group, Passercu- 

 lus and Coturniculus being accorded full generic rank, but in this 

 publication they were reduced to subgenera of Ammodramus. 

 This step was not approved outside of the American Orni- 

 thologists' Union, and its Committee on Nomenclature, recog- 

 nizing that an error had been made in the treatment of these 

 groups, in 1903 (Auk, XX, July, 1903. pp. 347-350) raised them 

 to the rank of full genera, with, however, some modification as 

 to their constituent species. It is therefore hardly a fair state- 

 ment to say, as Mr. Oberholser does, that the substitution of 

 Ammodramus for Coturniculus returns to the species and sub- 

 species of that group "their former generic designation," when in 

 truth Ammodramus in the restricted sense has never pertained to 

 them but to the A. caudacutus-maritimus group, and the name 

 was used to cover the Coturniculus forms only temporarily by a 

 small part of writers on the group. By many writers Coturniculus 

 is merged with Ammodramus and treated as merely a synonym of 

 it. Even the A. O. U. Committee has recently transferred all the 

 species formerly placed in Coturniculus, except the savannarum 

 group, to Ammodramus, while the latest authorities who accept 



