1912 J Correspondence. Obl 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



The Functions of the A. O. U. Committee on Nomenclature. 



Editor of 'The Auk': 



Dear Sir: The appearance, in your July issue, of the Sixteenth Supple- 

 ment to the A. O. U. Check-List, and of comments in your 'Notes and 

 News' column relative to the uses of the A. O. U. Committee, prompt me 

 to give expression to some ideas which have doubtless occurred independ- 

 ently to not a few lay students of North American birds. 



If I infer correctly, the comments in question were written by a member 

 of the Committee; hence they are in a measure an avowal of purpose, 

 and to a degree authoritative. From these comments, and from the recent 

 output of the Committee, we may safely adduce the following as being 

 the main, if not all of, the functions of the Committee. 



(1) To decide upon a system of groupings, that is, upon what genera 

 and higher groups are to be recognized, and upon the sequence of these 

 and the contained species. (2) To decide upon cases of nomenclature, 

 where from various contingencies the correct name of the species may be 

 in more or less doubt. (3) To determine the boundaries of 'North Amer- 

 ica,' and to pass upon the claims for inclusion in the North American list, 

 of various vagrant species, so rare that the evidence of occurrence must 

 be examined and weighed. (4) To decide as to the merits of the various 

 finely differentiated subspecies which are being named by systematic 

 students, both as to the validity of the characters assigned, and as to 

 whether the degree of difference is sufficiently well marked to warrant 

 recognition in the official Check-List. 



The great value of a committee of arbitration in the first three of these 

 functions is beyond any possibility of dispute. The personnel of the 

 Committee as now constituted is of that high grade of judicial ability and 

 long experience which brings confidence in their rulings in these respects. 

 For these functions alone the existence of such a committee is fully war- 

 ranted. The chief complaint that I can seriously offer in these regards 

 is that in the recent Third Edition of the Check-List the matter of pre- 

 senting a modern system of classification was shirked altogether, on the 

 plea (flimsy, was it not?) that some inconvenience would result! This 

 was a grievous error, which every bona fide student of ornithology deplores. 



A further disappointment was met, when the Sixteenth Supplement 

 came to hand lacking a single nomenclatural ruling — this being pre- 

 eminently the service which the Committee is well fitted to render. Numer- 

 ous proposals of changes in generic and specific names have lately been 

 made. Undoubtedly many names previously in use in the Check-List 

 require replacement upon perfectly good grounds. And an authoritative 

 decision in each case, not long delayed, is a desideratum of the active 

 student of birds. Postponement of such action is provoking. 



