526 Letters, Extracts, and Notes. [Ibis, 



Apart from this, there is a great English-speaking nation 

 across the Atlantic who must be taken into account, unless 

 our science is to be involved in hopeless confusion. 



In regard to the second paragraph, we may say that we 

 are, so far as our own private views are concerned, quite in 

 agreement with him, and we regret as much as he does the 

 substitution of the 10th for the 12th edition of Linnseus's 

 ' Systema ' as the starting-point of nomenclature. The 

 matter was decided, however, by the committee appointed 

 to report on the rules of zoological nomenclature by the 

 International Zoological Congress in 1897, and the decision 

 was accepted by the Congress itself, and it appears to us 

 that it is our duty to accept such a decision if it will lead to 

 uniformity and fixity. To go back now to the 12tli edition 

 would make confusion worse confounded. 



We do not think any present-day worker in systematic 

 ornithology can ignore subspecies or their true significance 

 and utility. Some authors may carry the matter too far, 

 and propose to recognize differences between local forms 

 imperceptible to other workers ; but, after all, even our 

 predecessors often did the same thing in regard to what 

 they termed species. 



Finally, in regard to the paper by Miss Baxter and 

 Miss Rintoul in the last number of 'The Ibis,' we would 

 point out that the nomenclature follows exactly that laid 

 down in the recently published *B. O. U. List,' except that 

 the specific name is in many cases repeated to show that 

 the authors are alluding to the typical, which is in most 

 cases the British race, and not to the species in its wider 

 sense. How, therefore, Mr. Harting can say that " they 

 are so disguised by this new-fangled nomenclature as to be 

 unrecognizable'' passes our comprehension, — Ed.] 



Sir, — ^Mr. Harting apparently bases his right to dictate 

 to the Editor of ' The Ibis,' the compilers of the ' B. O. U. 

 List,' and those of the * Hand List ' on the ground that he 



