6 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 'J'] 



proposed before 1758. With regard to genera the idea seems to have 

 been that some " epoch-making work," from which the nomenclature 

 is to start, may be determined for each class or greater group by the 

 students specializing in the same. It is incidentally pointed out that 

 G. R. Gray, in 1841, " adopts the first edition of the Systema (1735) 

 as the epoch-maker for ornithological genera. For specific names he 

 does not go behind the tenth edition." It should be noted that the 

 recommendations of the report aim at bringing about as near an ap- 

 proach between the zoological and the botanical codes of nomencla- 

 ture as possible without making them identical. 



The ornithologists have always been active in nomenclatorial mat- 

 ters so that it was quite natural that at the founding of the American 

 Ornithologists' Union in 1883, one of its first acts was to create a 

 committee to which was referred " the question of a Revision of the 

 Classification and Nomenclature of the Birds of North America." 

 The committee soon realized that no such revision could be under- 

 taken without a discussion of the general principles of zoological 

 nomenclature, a discussion which resulted in the formation of a Code 

 of Rules for th? guidance of the committee. " These rules were con- 

 sidered in their bearing upon zoology at large as well as upon orni- 

 thology alone, it being obvious that sound principles of nomenclature 

 should be susceptible of general application." In publishing the Code 

 (The Code of Nomenclature .... adopted by the American Orni- 

 thologists' Union. New York, 1886) the hope was expressed " that 

 the new Code will find favor, not only with ornithologists generally." 

 This hope was speedily realized as numerous American zoologists, 

 specialists in all classes of the animal kingdom, publicly announced 

 their adherence to the A. O. U. Code, as it came to be known. 



While ostensibly based upon the Stricklandian rules, nevertheless 

 the new Code marked a decided departure in zoological nomenclature 

 based as it was upon the principle of an inflexible and exceptionless 

 law of priority, and framed with the express purpose of allowing 

 the least possible play for individual preferences and prejudices. 

 Moreover, it broke definitely with the old " binomial " nomenclature 

 consisting in the application of " two names, one of which expresses 

 the specific distinctness of the organism from all others, the other its 

 superspecific indistinctness from, or generic identity with, certain 

 other organisms, actual or implied ; the former name being the 

 specific, the latter the generic designation ; the two together consti- 

 tuting the technical name of any specifically distinct organism." The 

 A. O. U. Code only regards " the binomial system as a phase of 

 zoological nomenclature." The " trinomial system " is another phase 



