VOl l^ XI1 ] Notes and News. 387 



We learn with great regret of the death of Lord Brabourne, who was 

 killed in action on March 13, 1915, in the twenty-ninth year of his age. 

 He had returned only recently from South America where he was collecting 

 material for the work on ' The Birds of South America ' which he was 

 writing in conjunction with Mr. Charles Chubb and of which only one part 

 had appeared. Lord Brabourne was an officer of the Grenadier Guards. 



The question of the limits of genera bids fair to be the most serious 

 problem in zoological nomenclature. In the recent ' List of British Birds ' 

 there are 171 species and 151 generic groups which are to be found also in 

 the A. O. U. Check-List. The two committees working under the Inter- 

 national Code have, after making allowance for several admitted errors or 

 arbitrary violations of rules, arrived at the same names for all but four of 

 the species, while the latest British list differs from that of Dr. Hartert and 

 his associates in only 3 specific cases. When three independent committees 

 approach so close to uniformity it would seem that the International Code 

 had solved the problems of nomenclatural discrepancy. 



In the case of the 151 genera, however, we find 49 cases where the names 

 employed are different. After making allowance as above we find that 

 only 7 of this number are due to questions of nomenclature, i. e. to the still 

 unsettled point as to how much difference in spelling constitutes a different 

 word and to the recognition of certain works in systematic nomenclature. 



The other 42 cases are due to difference of opinion as to the limitation 

 of genera. One committee, for instance, considers that the Mallard, 

 Blue-winged and Green-winged Teal, each represents a distinct genus and 

 consequently calls them Anas brachyrhynchos, Querquedula discors and 

 Nettion carolinense. Another considers that they all belong to one genus 

 and quotes them as, Anas brachyrhynchos, Anas discors and Anas 

 carolinensis. The third regards the Teal as congeneric but considers that 

 the Mallard represents a distinct genus and we have, Anas brachyrhynchos 

 Querquedula discors and Querquedula carolinensis. It will be noticed that 

 there is here just as much confusion and difference of opinion as could 

 possibly be occasioned by the law of priority, the ' first species ' rule of 

 type fixation, or any of the other principles of nomenclature against which 

 such protests have been directed; and yet this is due purely to a question 

 of ornithology with which the rules of nomenclature and the " name 

 jugglers " have nothing whatever to do. 



Now if the name of a bird is to be used as a medium to exploit personal 

 opinions as to the phylogeny and relationship of species we had better 

 devise some other means of tagging a species so that some one else will 

 know what we are talking about. 



If on the other liand the name of the bird is to constitute such a ' tag ' 

 then we should by some international and arbitrary agreement decide 

 these disputed cases so that we may have the same uniformity ornithologi- 

 cally that we seem to have at last attained nomenclaturally. 



The great majority of ornithologists are pretty well agreed upon the great 



