388 Notes and News. [july 



majority of genera and there will not be so very many to be settled arbi- 

 trarily, but such arbitrary action, if we are to have a permanent and uni- 

 versal system of names, seems to be inevitable. Those who wish to make 

 further subdivisions may still use the suppressed names as subgenera in 

 any discussion or systematic monograph. 



Another phase of the same question is the increasing tendency to recog- 

 nize finer and finer generic divisions, a matter which has been discussed by 

 the writer (Jour. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila. XV, p. 313) and by the British Orni- 

 thologists' Club at a recent meeting (Bull. B. O. C, No. CCIV, p. 68 et seq.). 

 In some groups we have already reached the stage where a large number 

 of genera contain but a single species each. The generic name has thus 

 become of exactly the same significance as the specific name and is super- 

 fluous. The ultimate outcome of this sort of thing will be a nomenclature 

 wherein each species will have a name but no clue whatever to its relation- 

 ship will be found in this name. 



Linnseus' idea was that the 63 genera under which he arranged all the 

 birds known to him, represented 63 types of bird structure and when the 

 generic name was mentioned the general character of the bird was immedi- 

 ately known, while the specific name indicated a form of that type of bird. 



Of course we cannot go back to Linna?us or anywhere near to him, but 

 we must, if a name is to be maintained as a name, check the further sub- 

 division of genera. Moreover why is the discovery of a slight structural 

 difference of such paramount importance that we should overturn our 

 names to advertise it? Is it not just as important to emphasize relation- 

 ship as divergence? Indeed we are suffering at the present time in syste- 

 matic ornithology for the need of some way to indicate relationship. We 

 shall soon be forced to erect a lot of subfamilies to indicate relationships 

 formerly denoted by generic names which have now been degraded until 

 they are perilously close to species. 



It should be born in mind that a genus is not a definite thing in the sense 

 that a species is; it is simply a group for convenience, sometimes it is sharply 

 defined, more often it is not. This fact is well shown in the virtual agree- 

 ment of the committees referred to above as to the number of species before 

 them and their wide differences of opinion as to the number of genera. 



It is difficult to provide a means for bringing about the desired uniformity 

 in the limits and number of generic groups, but the necessity for such action 

 should be strongly emphasized and widely proclaimed. 



The thirty-third stated Meeting of the American Ornithologists' Union 

 was held in San Francisco, May 17-20, 1915. This was the first regular 

 meeting of the Union to be held outside of the eastern cities of New York, 

 Cambridge, Washington and Philadelphia and much credit is due to the 

 energy and generous hospitality of the California members, which were 

 responsible not only for the notable success of the meeting, but for its 

 being held so far away from what might be called the 'type locality' of 

 the A. O. U. 



