NA TURE 



2;i 



THURSDAY, APRIL 27, 1911. 



A NEW CATALOGUE OF BRITISH BIRDS. 



A List of British Birds, showing at a Glance the 

 Exact Status of Each Species, Revised to August, 

 1910. By W. R. Ogilvie-Grant. Pp. 60. (London : 

 Witherby and Co., 1909.) Price is. 6d. 



THE old order changeth giving place to new. is 

 true with a vengeance concerning lists of 

 British birds, but there really does not seem to be 

 any good reason for the changes. As all linear 

 arrangements of birds must be unsatisfactory, why 

 should we be annoyed with new anomalies of this 

 kind, and constant changes in the arrangement and 

 order of sequence of our birds in what ought to be 

 works of reference? As if it reallv made any differ- 

 ence which comes first and comes last in the book ! 

 What the reader and student really does want to 

 know is, whether he is to open the new book at the 

 beginning or at the end to find, say, a crow or a 

 duck, as the case may be. Unfortunately this is just 

 what he cannot now know. We had become used 

 to the change from the old arrangement which placed 

 the birds of prey at the head, and had accepted that 

 which began with the highly organised song-birds, 

 but were not allowed to rest there. In the latest list 

 now before us we begin with the game-birds (with 

 which Seebohm ended), and end with the crows 

 (which Sharpe put first) ! And so on, and so on 

 through all the miserable, useless changes. 



The new list is printed in such a form that it can 

 be cut up and used for labelling collections. The 

 system adopted to indicate the status of each species 

 is to assign each, by the use of numbered columns, 

 to one of these five groups : — (i) Resident, breeds ; 

 (2) regular summer visitor, breeds; (3) regular autumn, 

 winter, or spring visitor, does not breed ; (4) occasional 

 visitor, used to breed ; (5) occasional visitor, never 

 known to breed. When species have not occurred 

 more than six times references are given to the works 

 in which they have been recorded. But these are not, 

 except in a few cases, to the original records. Occa- 

 sional explanatory or amplifying notes are given, 

 rendered desirable perhaps from the difficulties of 

 grouping the birds which soon arise. For instance, 

 the black-necked grebe seems out of place in the 

 third column, for it is known to have bred here 

 for years, and its breeding is mentioned in a note. 

 The difficulties of grouping birds in this way are 

 evidently great, and a system can hardly be con- 

 sidered satisfactory which leaves the avocet and great 

 bustard (both now occasional visitors, which used to 

 Ireed) in different columns, because apparently the 

 Ljieat bustard is the rarer of the two as a visitor 

 nowadays, and was formerly a resident, while the 

 avocet was a summer visitor. Here again a note is 

 necessary to qualify the latter 's exclusion from the 

 ilumn "used to breed." Saunders's simple and 



isterly plat, of indicating the status of a species 



I IV the type or fount, in his well-known list, if it did 



not indicate so much as the new catalogue (which 



the numerous additions to the British avifauna since 



NO. 2165, VOL. 86] 



1907 have rendered necessary), at least had the merit 

 of indicating that little very clearly. 



The nomenclature in the present list differs some- 

 what from that used in the British Museum cata- 

 logues and guides, especially in the matter of such 

 genera as Totanus and Tringa, which the author 

 thinks (and we agree with him) have been split up 

 for no very apparent reason. The author is clearlv 

 not a "splitter," as is evidenced by his leaving the 

 black-headed bunting in the genus Emberiza. Mr. 

 Grant does not use trinomials, and his acceptance of 

 forms and races seems a little arbitrary. We may 

 be thankful that he does not accept the British gold- 

 crest, hedge-sparrow, tree creeper, &c., &'C., although 

 he does accept the British robin, another supposed 

 local race, the existence of which as a subspecies is 

 certainly not universally recognised. The square 

 brackets, indicating species of which the history is 

 doubtful, or which have, perhaps, been artificially 

 introduced, seem to be somewhat arbitrarily applied ; 

 but this, it must be admitted, is largely a matter of 

 individual opinion. 



But to criticise the inclusion and exclusion of 

 species, and the forms allowed and disallowed, would 

 occupy too much space. Very largely, too, these are 

 matters of opinion, and the opinions held are very 

 diverse — the doctors differ. Yet some allusion must 

 be made to the present attempt to indicate the 

 modern status of our birds, insomuch as the difficul- 

 ties encountered in the attempt, and already alluded 

 to, become more apparent as we read through the 

 list — difficulties which do not seem to be always satis-' 

 factorily surmounted. To take the honey buzzard, for 

 instance. It is here stated to be a regular autumn,' 

 winter, or spring visitor, which does not breed, and 

 there is a note appended that it formerly bred in 

 Great Britain. The statement that it does not breed 

 is a bold one, for nobody would be surprised at the 

 discovery of a honey buzzard's nest in England anv 

 year. Its former status was undoubtedly that of a 

 breeding summer visitor. It has become very rare, 

 as such, of late years, and there is no recent record 

 of its nesting. But there is no reason why birds 

 should not arrive any year, and, if they escaped being 

 shot by gamekeepers, breed. As in the case of other 

 summer migrants, individuals from more northern 

 countries pass here in autumn. 



This bird and the golden oriole and hoopoe show 

 the difficulties of this kind of concise classification. 

 The original status of all three was " Summer visitor ; 

 breeding." But on account of their rarity, in different 

 degrees, and the use of the word "regular" in column 

 No. 2, a difficulty has been made of putting them all 

 therein. Yet the hoopoe is put there with a qualifying 

 note in almost the same words and to the same effect 

 as that appended to the golden oriole (placed in 

 column 4), and the honey buzzard is relegated to column 

 3, although the last-named bred more regularly in 

 this country than either of the others, and while none 

 of them breed regularly now it is not very improbable 

 that any one of them might do so any year. The 

 marsh harrier is included in column 3 among those- 

 birds which do "not breed," with a note appended 

 saying that it "occasionally breeds." This really 



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