364 Mr. E. Hartert on some Species of 



more convenient method, and yet Dr. Sharpe calls it a clumsy 

 method ; but I cannot help considering the way of saying 

 " Corethrura pulchra subsp. reichenowi '' much more so. 



In any case, even if the trinomial plan is not used, the 

 naming of the subspecies that we separate from the originally 

 described form is the least part of the trouble. The difficulty 

 is how to name the other form ! The Long- tailed Tit is 

 generally called, if I may be allowed to use again the former 

 example, A. caudata pnre and simple. But that is not suffi- 

 cient, because when only this expression is used we are not 

 always certain whether the author means to restrict that name 

 to the white-headed eastern form, or includes in it all the 

 forms of the species. If, therefore, the first-named form 

 alone is intended, it ought to be expressed in the way of 

 naming it. The best way seems to me to call it A. caudata 

 typica, and this method has already been employed by 

 ornithologists and by Mr. O. Thomas and Mr. Sclater 

 in mammalogy. This is decidedly better than to name it 

 A. caudata caudata, as has been proposed on the Continent; 

 but this kind of nomenclature has been used, so far as I am 

 aware, only in a few entomological papers. This repeating 

 of the specific name seems specially awkward in the cases of 

 the unavoidable tautonymic names, where such names would 

 occur, as Perdix perdix perdix ! If this sort of cubic 

 nomenclature can be avoided, pray let us do so. When 

 the author^s name has to be added, Mr. O. Thomas and 

 others (myself included) have written A. caudata typica 

 (Linn.), and I have also seen A. caudata caudata (Linn.). 

 Both methods are decidedly wrong, for Linnseus, or whoever 

 was the original author of the species, had, in most cases, 

 no idea of there being any closely-allied subspecies ; and if 

 they knew the form, they would, in former days (as is often 

 done now, I am sorry to say), either have included it in the 

 synonymy of thfeir species ("lumper'^ !) or have separated it 

 specifically (''splitter''!). The original author of the first- 

 named specific form should therefore not be made responsible 

 for our subspecies. We should write Acredula caudata 

 (L.) typica, or, if the other (clumsy) method is used, Acre- 

 dula caudata (L.) caudata. The term typica stands thus 



