Recently published Ornithological Works. 701 



recognised : tlie difficulty is to understand how some of 

 the "subspecies" admitted were separated under such 

 ciicurastances. 



The Committee further state '^the specific . . . uames of 

 John Gould have been in current use for sixty years/' and 

 they include as such Strepera anaphonensis Temminck, which 

 was rejected in the ' Catalogue of Birds of the British 

 Mus3um ' in 1877 and is now first utilised in scientific work 

 since that date, in the present List. 



It is well known to oruitiiologists that Gould's names 

 liave been continually under revision since 1865, the first 

 and commonly accepted taking place in 1877, only twelve 

 years after Gould's book was published, when Ramsay put 

 forward his first list ; this was followed by his Tabular List 

 in 1888. Subsequent revisers have been Hall, one of the 

 present Committee, who in 1899 based his list upon the 

 ' (catalogue of Birds in the Britisli Museum ' ; this nomencla- 

 ture was also accepted by Campbell (another of the present 

 Committee) in his monumental ' Nests and Eggs of Aus- 

 tralian Birds/ whilst North in his similarly named work has 

 also based his names upon that series of Monographs. 



The Committee have not rejected preoccupied names, 

 neither have they accepted legitimate corrections save in an 

 erratic indeterminable manner. A good instance is the 

 retention of Malurus longicaudas Gould for the Tasmanian 

 Blue Wren Warbler, and Malurus cyaneus Ellis for the 

 iMainland Blue Wren Warbler. It is well known and in- 

 disputable that Ellis named a bird from Adventure Bay, 

 Tasmania, which is undoubtedly the same as the one which 

 Gould named Malurus longicaudus ; moreover, this name 

 is preoccupied by Temminck. These points have been 

 undisputed since 1873, wheii Pelzeln first pointed thcui out. 



In conclusion, it can only be reiterated that the Official 

 Check -list can be j-egarded merely as an expression of the 

 conservative views of the older school of Australian oi-nitho- 

 logists, and not as a useful index to the state of ornithological 

 science in Australia. 



