ORNITHOLOGIST 



— AND — 



OOLOGIST. 



$1.00 per 

 Annum. 



Joseph M. Wade, Editor and Publisher. 

 Established, March, 1875. 



Single Copy 

 10 Cents. 



VOL. VIII. 



BOSTON, AUGUST, 1883. 



No. 8. 



A Reply to Dr. Coues. 



To the Editor of the Quebec Morning Chronicle. 



Dear Sir: In your issue of the 4tli insi, 

 Dr. Coues attempts to " correct a misai?- 

 prehension respecting some points" raised 

 in my review of "New England Bii'd 

 Life," but his effort lacks one essential ele- 

 ment of success — there was no misappre- 

 hension to correct. 



I was well aware that the cuts of the 

 Great-horned Owl and Snowy Owl were 

 "copied from Audubon's famous folio en- 

 gravings," although no mention was made 

 of this in the book ; but Dr. Coiies has a 

 way of using copies frona Audubon's en- 

 gravings, and from others, without ac- 

 knowledging the source of their origin. 

 He admits that these cuts are " not partic- 

 ularly good," and I submit, that the fact of 

 their having been drawn by the great nat- 

 uralist is not, of itself, evidence that they 

 were not drawn from badly mounted spec- 

 imens. 



In my review I did not mention that 

 these were copied from Audubon, for the 

 same reason that I did not mention many 

 other things — the peculiar appearance of 

 the Woodcock and of the Brant, for in- 

 stance — for want of space, but it is not 

 very likely that the artist of "New England 

 Bird Life " — the party who is responsible 

 for the few illustrations which appear to 

 have been designed especially for this 

 work — will suffer in reputation from hav- 

 ing these owls credited to him. One can- 

 not help wondering why Dr. Coues per- 

 mitted some of the cuts to be put in the 

 book ; they are neither valuable for deco- 



ration nor for illustration : they are worse 

 than useless, they are misleading. 



Dr. Coues appears to. take exception to 

 my remark that students will regret that 

 he had not seen the desirability of adopt- 

 ing the Smithsonian system of classifica- 

 tion and nomenclature instead of using 

 that framed by himself. Unquestionably 

 an}' author has the right to adopt whatever 

 nomenclature he may think best, and is " at 

 liberty to take all proj^er means " to have 

 any system prevail, as Dr. Coues. asserts, 

 but the learned Doctor must not forget 

 that those who purchase books and who 

 read them, have also the right to regret 

 when an author pursues any course which 

 increases the difficulty of studying a sub- 

 ject, or which, in their opinion, conflicts 

 with its best interest. And those who are 

 interested in the study of ornithology feel 

 themselves at liberty to "' take all proper 

 means " to prevent the confusion which 

 will inevitably arise should these two sys- 

 tems come into equally general use. 



That the readers of the Chronicle who 

 may not have examined those works shall 

 have an intelligent idea of the causes which 

 lead to this confusion, I will quote a few 

 examples of their differences, selected 

 from the latest editions. 



In the first group, the Turdidie, Mr. 

 Ridgway opens the Smithsonian "Cata- 

 logue " with the Wood Thrush, and places 

 the Robin as tenth, while Dr. Coues' 

 " Check List" places the Robin first and 

 the Wood Thrush sixth, and so on, no one 

 species having an equal position in both 

 classifications. 



In nomenclature the differences are al- 



