Vol. XIV, 



191S 



J Problems of Nomenclature. 12 1 



another, and separate those that are Hke from those that are 

 unlike. This can be done in many ways, as the history of science 

 abundantly proves. Nearly every leader of ornithology has, in 

 his time, introduced his own system. Naturally, a harvest of 

 confusion, due to defective knowledge, has been reaped, and but 

 little golden grain garnered. Remodelling has been rendered 

 necessary. This unhappy state of affairs has arisen principally 

 through the indifference shown to the use as a basis of both the 

 internal and external characters of birds which all thoughtful 

 ornithologists must admit are reciprocal, and therefore of 

 mutual value, and inseparable for purposes of classification ; 

 and, also, this state is partly due to the personal idiosyncrasies 

 of thought of each leader. 



We have now to construct the family tree or genealogical table 

 which will bring out the true affinities of birds ; in other 

 words, to discover their genetic or blood relationships, and 

 establish them with as few breaks as possible after investigating 

 their structural affinities or morphological characters. This needs 

 to be accomplished in as precise a manner as possible, and these 

 characters placed in a scale of values, so to speak, the degree 

 of likeness or want of hkeness being based on the theory of 

 evolution, or descent with modification, from a common stem. 

 We now find it expedient to institute a system of grouping, 

 whereby the hke are brought together and separated from the 

 unlike. This grouping or grading, whereby we stamp each group 

 with its relative value, enables us to place it correctly in the 

 scale. For convenience, stability, and harmony, biologists have 

 invented an arbitrary naming of these groups, such as class, 

 order, family, genus, and species, which they have further sub- 

 divided, hoping that these definitions will prove to be a con- 

 venient medium of exchange of ideas with their fellow-workers, 

 realizing that, conventional as these designations are, it is 

 convenient to have a recognized sliding scale of value, whether 

 it be from the highest to the lowest forms or the lowest to the 

 highest. These subdivisions express better that which is most 

 highly specialized by differentiation to the last degree from the 

 characters of its primitive ancestors, if in proper sequence. The 

 goal to be reached is that of finding the right way to arrange, 

 describe, and catalogue birds in a comprehensive and convenient 

 form, recognizing that nomenclature is simply the system of 

 labelling and cataloguing something that has a difference from 

 that of some other thing. For that other thing to be worthy of 

 separate recognition, it should possess constant and stable 

 variation from that of what we term the type. 



Previous to the publication of the loth edition of " Systema 

 Naturae " by Linnaeus, the majority of scientists indicated species 

 by a name comprising one word, aided by a lengthy definition. 

 Linnaeus, perceiving the cumbersomeness and the inconvenience 

 of this method and the labour involved, introduced the generical 

 system of nomenclatural labelling, thereby systematizing in an 



