114 Dr. P. L. Sclater on the neio 



Rules of Zoological Nomenclature ■^. It was also announced 

 that some remarks on tliis important publication would be 

 given in the next number of ' The Ibis.' The editor of the 

 present series of our Journal has requested me to take 

 this task off his hands, and I have agreed to do so, it 

 being understood that the writer of these remarks is solely 

 responsible for them, and not the editor of the Journal in 

 which they are published. 



On reading the *' Introduction" to the new ^Hand-list' 

 I was much surprised to find no mention of the Rules for 

 Zoological Nomenclature prepared by the British Association 

 for the Advancement of Science. Surely, before adopting 

 wholesale the so-called '' International " Rules, it would 

 have been better to ascertain what our own zoologists had 

 done in this matter. Yet the Rules of the British Associ- 

 ation are utterly ignored, and it is even stated that the 

 nomenclature of Birds has been "neglected for more than 

 150 years, although a requisite of the greatest importance." 

 But this statement is by no means correct, as I shall proceed 

 to shew. 



When I began my residence at Oxford, at Easter 1846, 

 as a Scholar of Corpus Christi College, I quickly made the 

 acquaintance of the late Hugh Edwin Strickland, F.R.S., 

 who was at that time living at Oxford anrl giving lectures 

 there as Reader in Geology. When not engaged with his 

 lectures Strickland was at the Radcliffe Library nearly every 

 day, at work on his ' Ornithological Synonyms,' as he pro- 

 posed to call his book on the nomenclature of Birds f- We 

 soon became great friends, and remained so uTitil his 

 much lamented death by a raihvay accident in 1853. In 

 fact Strickland was my master and instructor in all matters 



* Regies luternationales de la Nomenclature Zoologique adoptees par 

 les Congres Internatiouaux de Zoologie. Paris, 1905. 



t This work was left incomplete at Strickland's death. The first part 

 of it, containing the synonymy of the Accipitres, was printed and 

 published by Van Voorst (in 1855), edited by Mrs. Hugh Strickland and 

 Sir William Jardine. The MS. of the rest of the work is at Cambridge 

 along with the Strickland Collection and Library. 



