280 Recently published Ornithological Works. 



ready, is issued before the 24th, 25th, and 26th. It is 

 devoted mainly to the great group of Anseres, with its allies 

 the Palamedese and Phoenicopteri, but contains also the 

 Tin ami and Ratitse. We all know the character of Count 

 Salvadori^s work, which, on this, as it has been on all pre- 

 vious occasions, is of the most painstaking and finished 

 description. If, therefore, we venture to criticize some of 

 the results he has arrived at, it must not be supposed that 

 we undervalue this most meritorious and most useful volume 

 as a whole. 



In the first place systematists, as we all know, may be 

 "lumpers'"^ or '^splitters.'' '' Splitting ^^ is in these days 

 very much in fashion, and we think that our author has 

 yielded rather too freely to that tendency, both in the matter 

 of generic and specific divisions, especially as regards the 

 species of Tinamous, to the number of which he has added 

 no fewer than 14. 



In the second place, the changes of nomenclature Count 



Salvadori proposes to introduce, especially as regards some 



of our most familiar species, are absolutely alarming, and 



we do not think he will induce his brother ornithologists to 



follow him in these radical innovations — at any rate we hope 



not. Who will know the Bean Goose in Anser fabalis, or 



the White-eyed Duck as Nyroca africana ? Such names 



are only useful to conceal their owners, as language has been 



said to be intended to disguise our thoughts ! No doubt 



Latham, in an absent mood, latinized the name of Bean 



Goose in his ' List of the Birds of Great Britain ' into Anas 



fabalis a year before Gmeliu gave it the name of Anas 



segetum. But the term "fabalis" has been clean forgotten 



ever since. Even Latham himself never used it again, aud 



in his ' Index Ornithologicus ' called the Bean Goose '' Anas 



segetum," and did not even allude to " Anas fabalis." Nor 



has any other author ever thought of it during the past 108 



years. Under these circumstances the specific term fabalis 



may be deservedly neglected, as withdrawn by the author 



himself and obsolete. 



In the same way " africana " has never been used as the 



