PREFACE. v 



the Crows as diligently as he has done the Wading Birds, he 

 would probably have found little difficulty in recognising that 

 the black plumage of the former birds is really their only 

 warranty for inclusion in a single genus Corvus, and that the 

 characters for generic separation, when properly weighed, are 

 as important as the genera of CharadriidcR, which Mr. Harting 

 accepts without hesitation. Some of the changes in nomen- 

 clature at which he "stands aghast" might have paralysed him 

 at any moment during the last twenty years, and, as I have 

 already said, the genera of the Corvidce are none of them of 

 my own invention. 



Mr. Harting, moreover, entirely misunderstands the principle 

 of the duplicate generic and specific names by which such titles 

 as Graculus graculus are arrived at. It is not adopted for the 

 sake of attaching the name of the typical species to that of 

 the genus. That this must often, and in fact generally, occur, 

 is really a matter of chance, and I am sorry that the mere 

 act of restoring Linnean specific names to their original posi- 

 tion has resulted in the duplication of the name, but then the 

 Linnean names ought never to have been used in a generic 

 sense. Thus, if Linnaeus called the Partridge Tetrao perdix, 

 the name perdix ought to be retained at all costs for the species. 

 When Perdix was taken in a generic sense and the species was 

 called Perdix cincrea, I contend that it ought never to have 

 been allowed, and if, in restoring the Linnean specific name of 

 perdix % it results that the oldest generic name is also Perdix^ 

 and the species has to be called Perdix perdix (L.), I can only 

 say that I am sorry, but it cannot be helped. 



Canon Tristram's paper on the " Use and Abuse of Generic 

 Names" ("Ibis," 1895, pp. 130-133) expresses the ideas of an 

 old-fashioned ornithologist on modern-day work, but my critic 

 has not shown the consistency of opinion which might have been 

 expected from the author of such an emphatic diatribe as that 

 which he has directed against me and my methods of work. 

 Genera are, according to Canon Tristram, entirely arbitrary, 



