1922.] i^omenctature ami Suhspectes. 315 



history o£ the question, and states that the ' Handlist of 

 British Birds/ published in 1912, for the nomenclature 

 of which Dr. E. Hartcrt was mainly responsible (<;/'. Intro- 

 duction, p. xii), has changed the scientific name of no fewer 

 than 226 out of 417 species there recognized as belonging 

 to the British avifauna, from those that were adopted in 

 the last edition (1907) of Saunders's list. 



These changes were largely due to the adoption of a rule 

 for which the International Committee were responsible, 

 but which was never agreed to by many of our best orni- 

 thologists, viz., that the 10th edition of Linnaeus should be 

 taken as the starting-point for priority instead of the 12th. 

 The lamentable results of this change cannot bo better 

 shown than by the well-knowu and often cited cases of the 

 common Wild Duck and the Song-Thrush. That a man 

 who must have known both these birds as well as any 

 living species, could have made such careless changes in 

 their names in his own books, seems to me an excellent 

 reason for saying that, however great a systematist Linnaius 

 miolit have been, neither he nor his works deserve to be 

 treated as a fetish, or to be worshipped by his successors 

 for ever. I think we have made a great deal too much of 

 Linnseus's claim to be the founder of binomial nomenclature ; 

 and now that we have necessarily adopted trinomialism, 

 whatever reasons there may have been for this rule, 

 seem to me to have more or less disappeared. But there 

 are a number of old authors who have not, and never had, 

 any claim to real knowledge of the species to which they 

 gave names, who deserve even less recognition ; and it is 

 just such cases as those pointed out by Dr. Ticehurst in 

 our last number (Ibis, 1922, p. 117) which will, for years 

 to come, cause names founded in obscure and forgotten 

 publications of no scientific value whatever, to be used by 

 the strict worshippers of priority. 



Let us now consider the opinions of the most recent writers 

 on these questions. I will take the letter of Mr. Loomis in 

 ' The Ibis,' 1920, j). 964, " On the last phase of the subspecies," 



