1918.] Letters, Extracts^ and Notes. 525 



(2) Causes great confusion and a palpable injustice to 



Linnseus (in violation of the Stricklanclian Code) 

 by substituting the 10th edition of the ' Systema 

 Nature ' for the 12th and last edition revised and 

 amended by the author in 1766 ; and 



(3) Ignores the simplicity and time-honoured employ- 



ment of binomial names by making extravagant 

 use of trinomials, which I regard as not only un- 

 desirable (with certain exceptions) but fantastical, 

 and in many cases ridiculous. 



The absurdity to which such a system has now been 

 reduced may be seen in a list of 180 birds published in the 

 last number of 'The Ibis' (April 1918, pp. 258-287). 

 About five-sixths of them are designated by trinomials, and 

 although the majority are amongst the most familiar of our 

 British birds, they are so disguised by this new-fangled 

 nomenclature as to be unrecognizable except by the ver- 

 nacular English names appended. Many of them, moreover, 

 bear different names on different pages of the same volume, 

 testifying to the want of uniformity in the nomenclature 

 adopted. 



Weary of protesting against these objectionable features 

 in a journal designed to advance the study of ornithology, 

 I can no longer subscribe to the publication of views 

 which 1 do not share, and I have therefore requested that 

 my name may be removed from the list of Members of the 

 British Ornithologists^ Union. 1 have neither time nor 

 inclination for further discussion on the subject. 



Your obedient servant, 

 Weybridge, June 1, 1918. James Edmund Harting. 



[With regard to the points raised in Mr. Harting's letter, 

 we think almost all ornithologists must agree that if our 

 science is to remain bound to the Stricklandian Code of 

 1843 there can be very slight hope of any progress. Pro- 

 gress means change, absence of change means stagnation. 



