NATURE 



^11 



THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1890. 



SEEBOHM'S "BIRDS OF JAPAN." 



The Birds of the Japanese Empire. By Henry Seebohm. 

 Pp. i.-xxiv., 1-386. (London : R. W. Porter, 1890.) 



MR. SEEBOHM'S work on the ornithology of Japan 

 is sure to be welcome to naturalists, as it is 

 always useful to have the avifauna of any country or 

 group of islands monographed and historically brought 

 up to date. In his latest work Mr. Seebohm has incor- 

 porated all the results obtained by recent explorers in 

 Japan, and we have now a very fair idea of the birds of 

 this portion of Eastern Asia. The map which accom- 

 panies the volume also helps to a better understanding of 

 the relations of Japanese ornithology with those of the 

 adjacent countries. Mr. Seebohm has further made use 

 of the present work to amplify and expound his recently- 

 published " Classification of Birds," so that the work 

 contains his latest views on this important subject. In 

 his original work he gave two schemes of arrangement, 

 giving a preference to the second or " alternative " one. 

 He appears now to have changed his mind, and to have 

 reverted to his original idea (" Classif B.," p. vii.), with this 

 important modification, that he now places his Coraceii- 

 formes after his Pico-Passeres, ending with Mimogypes 

 (American Turkey Vultures), which lead from the Ground 

 Hornbills {Bucorax), and are followed by the Sub-class 

 Falconiformes. There is no doubt that this is a great 

 gain in idea, and we are glad to see that Mr. Seebohm is 

 modifying his first notion, that it is absolutely advisable 

 to reduce the orders of birds to a small number of Sub- 

 Classes. We are of opinion that a still further increase 

 in the number of Orders will have to take place before 

 the scheme works to the satisfaction of ornithologists. 



The exigencies of arranging the Passerine Birds in the 

 present work, or at least the bulk of the Palasarctic 

 genera, have obliged Mr. Seebohm to declare himself on 

 the subject of their classification, and this is his 

 declaration : — " With some slight modifications, I have 

 adopted that defined by Mr. Oates (' Fauna of British 

 India : Birds,' i., p. 8), which seems to me to be a distinct 

 advance upon previous arrangements." Mr. Seebohm is 

 under a misapprehension here, unless we allow that his 

 " slight modifications " are intended to entirely subvert 

 Mr. Oates's arrangement by turning it topsy-turvy — anew 

 method of appreciation. The latter gentleman begins 

 with the Corvidce, Mr. Seebohm with the Turdince, 

 not one of Mr. Oates's families being allowed full rank, 

 but all of them relegated to the position of Sub- 

 families in the family Passeridce ! The Crateropodince (a 

 bad substitute for the Timeliidcc {ince) follow the Turdidce 

 in Seebohm's arrangement, whereas in Oates's classifica- 

 tion they come after the Paridis, which are by him con- 

 sidered to be a sub-family of the Corvidce. Oates's Syl- 

 viidce are separated from his Timaline birds by whole 

 families of Certhiidce, Sittidce, and Regulidce, while in the 

 Seebohmian arrangement the Sylviince follow the Cratero- 

 podince, and are in turn followed by the Parince, which 

 contains Gold-crests ( = Fam. Regulidcc of Oates), Tits 

 (= Sub-fam. Parince of Oates), Wrens and Creepers 

 (= Fam. Certhiidce of Oates), as well as the Nuthatches 

 NO. 1096, VOL. 42] 



(= Fam. Siitidce of Oates). The Laniidce and Sturnidcs 

 are the only families which are similarly located by both 

 authors, and in our humble opinion both of them are 

 wrong. If Mr. Seebohm should ever honour us by follow- 

 ing any classification of ours in the way in which he has 

 followed that of Mr. Oates, with slight tnodijications, we 

 can only beg to be protected from our friends ! 



The present work commences with a useful table of the 

 literature relating to the avifauna of Japan, to which may 

 be added a paper by Salvadori and Giglioli, " Uccelli 

 raccolti durante il Viaggio della Corvetta Vettor Pisani, 

 Sec," where there are some useful notes on the Scoters 

 {CEdemia) and other birds. It seems to us a great pity 

 that, having looked up all his books with so much 

 assiduity, Mr. Seebohm did not think it worth while to 

 publish a full list of references to Japanese birds, which 

 would have been most useful, and is even necessary in a 

 work of this kind. The chapter on the " Geographical 

 Distribution of Japanese Birds" is very interesting, and 

 the subject is worked out with all Mr. Seebohm's 

 accustomed energy and speculativeness, aided by full 

 statistics. 



In the third portion of the work, the " Classification 

 and Identification of Japanese Birds," the reader will find 

 a great deal more than the mere title denotes, for, as we 

 have hinted before, the author has seized the opportunity 

 of amplifying all his previous work on the classification of 

 Birds, so that this portion of the book is of the highest 

 interest to ornithologists of every countiy. We find, 

 however, that some of the woodcuts are not explained in 

 the text, and are apparently added as make-weights to 

 the diagnostic characters of the orders, but the reason 

 for so doing does not seem very clear. 



Apart from the omission of the name of the Natural 

 History Museum (Preface, p. iii.) from the list of four- 

 fold obligations which are considered to be due to other 

 Museums of Europe and America, a very uncompli- 

 mentary allusion to the work of the present writer occurs 

 on p. 113, under the heading of Motacilla japonica. We 

 have no intention of following Mr, Seebohm in his 

 reasoning with regard to this species. He devotes 

 nearly a page to show into what confusion (partly through 

 his own fault, as he admits) these black-backed Wagtails 

 of Japan had fallen, and then he claims to have fixed, in 

 1884, that Swinhoe's name oi japonica, bestowed in 1863, 

 must be restricted to the larger form which we re-named 

 M, grandis, "a useless synonym," as Mr. Seebohm is 

 kind enough to call it. Nevertheless, we can assure 

 Mr. Seebohm that if Swinhoe intended to give his name 

 o{ japonica to one of the black-backed Wagtails of Japan, 

 it was to the small one and not to the large one, that he 

 meant it to apply, as a specimen in the British Museum 

 labelled in his own handwriting shows ! Swinhoe's name, 

 therefore, is a synonym of M. lugens, and neither Mr. 

 Seebohm nor any one else can " fix " the name of 

 japo7tica for the large species. So far from being a 

 " useless synonym," the name of M. grandis is the only 

 one which can properly be applied to the latter, and even 

 if Mr. Seebohm's argument had been correct, his manner 

 of criticism is needlessly disagreeable. 



In a work like the present, which is nothing if not 

 exhaustive, it is surprising that we can find no reference 

 to Garrulus lidthi and Accentor fervidus. The only evi- 



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