206 Stone, Vroeg's Catalogue. [aptIi 



mond from a dealer in the same city. To Dr. Richmond's hberahty 

 I am indebted for the privilege of examining his copy of this rare 

 work. 



The second protest against accepting the names in question is 

 by Dr. E. D. Van Oort who discovered a copy of Vroeg's Catalogue 

 in the library of the Royal Zoological Society "Natura Artis 

 Magistra" at Amsterdam and describes it in Notes from the 

 Leyden Museum XXXIV No. 1, pp. 66-69. Dec. 1, 1911. 



Dr. Van Oort states that "all the new species of the "adum- 

 bratiunculfe" are mentioned, most of them under the same latin 

 names, some under other latin names" in the Catalogue proper 

 which precedes the Adumbratiunculse and the names in the latter 

 are thus preoccupied by those in the Catalogue. 



" These latter names however, cannot be considered because the 

 author of the names and of the descriptions is unknown." 



He adds that even if this were not the case the Adumbratiunculse 

 were anonymous when published and the quotations of Linnaeus 

 and Pallas citing the latter as the author do not affect the case. 



The latter contention I do not think will be seriously considered 

 as the evidence of Pallas' authorship is perfectly clear. The 

 former contention is distinctly illogical because if the names of the 

 Catalogue are denied recognition in scientific nomenclature they 

 certainly have no status whatever and cannot preclude the subse- 

 quent use of the same names, either in the same or another con- 

 nection. 



Since the American Ornithologists' Union Code of Nomenclature 

 does not reject anonymous names, I should be willing to accept 

 the new names which appear in the Catalogue proper and quote 

 them from there rather than from the Adumbratiunculse if there 

 were no other question involved. There is however, a serious 

 question as to whether the Catalogue is strictly binomial or was 

 even intended to be. 



The author states in the preface that the species are arranged 

 under the Linnsean genera and are numbered to correspond with 

 the tenth edition of the Systema Natura, while such species as 

 were not contained in this work are marked with a zero. He 

 further says "Ce qui nous a engage a en donner des descriptions 

 detailees a la fin du Catalogue, qui pourront servir a ceux qui se 



