Notes on Mr. R. B. Sharpens Catalogue 0/ Accipitres. 455 



XXXVII. — Notes on a ' Catalogue of the Accipitres in the 

 British Museum' by R. Bowdler Sharpe (1874). By 



J. H. GURNEY. 



(Continued from p. 279.) 



For the Kestrels^ properly so called, including those of the 

 New Worlds I think the generic name of " Tinnunculus ^' is 

 preferable to that of " Cerchneis " adopted by Mr. Sharpe 

 for them and for the allied subgenera Dissodectes and Ery- 

 thropus ; and I am fortified in this opinion by the following- 

 remarks from the pen of Dr. Sclater, which I have his per- 

 mission here to introduce : — 



" As regards the proper generic name for the Kestrels, Mr. 

 Salvin has already pointed out {' Ibis/ 1874, p. 360) that in 

 his opinion Mr. Sharpe has made an unnecessary alteration in 

 generally-employed nomenclature by employing the term 

 Cerchneis instead of Tinnunculus for this group. The reason 

 of the change is apparently that Mr. Sharpe considers that 

 Falco columbarius is the type of Vieillot's genus Tinnunculus, 

 which thus becomes a mere synonym of Falco (according to 

 Mr. Sharpe). But on turning to the ' Oiseaux de FAmerique 

 Septentrionale ■" (i. p. 39) it will be found that Vieillot uses 

 the name Tinnunculus simply as a Latin form of his division 

 ' Cresserelles.' In this work he includes two species of 

 ' Cresserelles,^ namely, Tinnunculus columbarius and T. spar- 

 verius. Therefore, even according to the most strict interpre- 

 tation of the rules of nomenclature, the term Tinnunculus is 

 as much applicable to one as to the other. It is surely much 

 more convenient to consider it as primarily applicable to the 

 second, a true Kestrel, as it has always been used in this 

 sense by previous writers, especially as the term tinnunculus 

 {i. e. ' bell ') is simply the specific name which Linnaeus gave 

 to the Common Kestrel turned into a genus. I think, 

 therefore, that the proper generic name of the Kestrels isTm- 

 nunculus, and not Cerchneis — the golden rule of nomenclature 

 being, in my opinion, to make no alterations in estabhshed 

 usage that can be possibly avoided." 



In referring to the genus Tinnunculus I would, in the first 



2i2 



