SCOLOPAX. 229 



Genus SCOLOPAX. 



The genus Scolopax was recognized by Linnaeus in 1766, in the 12th 

 edition of his ' Sy sterna Naturae/ i. p. 242. The Woodcock, S. rusticola 

 (being the Scolopax scolopax of Brisson) , is the type. 



The Snipes have the tarsus scutellated both before and behind ; the toes 

 are cleft to the base, and they have a small hind toe. They are further 

 distinguished by their long straight bill, longer than the tarsus and middle 

 toe, and slightly enlarged and softened towards the tip, the soft part 

 appearing hexagonally corrugated when dry and hard. 



The genus Scolopax is cosmopolitan and contains about a score species, 

 of which four breed in Europe. Two of these breed in the British Islands, 

 and the other two visit us in spring and autumn. 



The genus Scolopax has fared no better than the allied genera, and has 

 been divided and subdivided remorselessly by ornithologists anxious to see 

 their names handed down to posterity tied to the tail of a genus. 



The wanton multiplication of genera has become an evil of such magni- 

 tude, that ornithological nomenclature is rapidly becoming ripe for the 

 introduction of uninomialism. The division of a genus into subgeneric 

 groups is very useful and most scientific ; but to substitute the subgeneric 

 name for that of the genus, and thus burden the memory with five or six 

 times as many names as are necessary, is not only useless but productive of 

 great harm, and, so far from being scientific, it violates the first principles of 

 science. Nothing is so difficult as to teach people the extent of their own 

 ignorance. The multiplication of genera is perpetrated under the delusion 

 that certain so-called structural characters are of generic value. If orni- 

 thologists would only learn that they are absolutely ignorant of the taxo- 

 nomic value of any generic characters, they would not allow their vanity 

 to tempt them into the folly of genus-making. It is far more important 

 to know what are the nearest relations of a bird, than to be told that in the 

 opinion of some ornithological pedant the characters which isolate it from 

 its fellows are of generic value. No one who has studied the subject 

 dreams that it is possible even to attempt to make the lines which divide 

 genera of the same breadth. The bewildered ornithologist, who has learnt 

 the use of names and the value of classification, in his endeavours to be 

 scientific, must become alternately a " splitter " and a " lumper/' When he 

 has to deal with a crowd of closely allied birds, as the Thrushes, he is glad 

 to catch hold of a straw to keep a genus afloat ; but when he regards a 

 diversified group, like the Snipes or the Plovers, he is obliged to drown 

 genera by the score, and pelt them with ridicule and abuse until they sink. 



