634: Recently published Ornithological Works. 
XXX VII.—WNotices of recent Ornithological Publications. 
[Continued from p. 507.] 
84. Allen on the Types of the North-American Genera of 
Birds. 
[The Types of the North-American Genera of Birds. By J. A. Allen. 
Bull. Am. Mus. N. H. vol. xxii. art. xvi. pp. 279-384 (1907).] 
This is an essay upon what is known as the “ method of 
elimination ” used by some systematists to ascertain the 
correct types of genera in zoology when the author of the 
generic term has omitted to specify them. Mr. Allen 
describes this doctrine as follows :—“ All agree that a 
generic name proposed for a heterogeneous group of species 
should be used for one of its original components. If in the 
course of its dismemberment all the component species have 
been removed to other genera, the name of the original genus 
should be restored to the component of the group which was 
last removed. If a part of the component species have been 
thus taken out and others left, the reviser of the genus can 
select any one of the remaining species as its type, and such 
assignment cannot afterwards be interfered with. In case 
none of the original species have been removed, the first 
reviser has the right to designate any one of the original 
species as the type of the genus.” 
Against the “‘method of elimination,” which certainly 
leads to some unfortunate results if severely applied, 
Mr. Witmer Stone and others have promulgated the plan 
that the first species of such compound genera should always 
be taken as the type, and maintain that this is far the 
simpler method and easier of application. Yet so “ evidently 
disastrous” would be the ‘method of priority” if un- 
restricted in its application, that its advocates do not propose 
to bring Linnzus’s names within its scope. To do so would, 
in fact, necessitate the alteration of many of our most 
familiar names, especially in the case of those writers who 
insist on using the tenth edition of the ‘Systema Nature.’ 
In order to compare the relative merits of the two rival 
