328 BRITISH BIRDS. 



Howard Saunders by commemorating his errors in names for 

 British birds. It is much better to help the advocates of 

 strict priority in their earnest endeavours to approach, and 

 finally reach, stability in nomenclature, than to make new rules, 

 such as following the names of " latest lists of British birds." 

 In this case Mr. Witherby's proposal is particularly unfor- 

 tunate, as Saunders, although the foremost authority on 

 British birds, was not an authority in nomenclature, and this 

 is merely a technical nomenclatural question. I have no 

 objection to Mr. Witherby using the name " Grey-headed 

 Wagtail " for the Scandinavian Yellow Wagtail, if this is the 

 adopted English name, but he can never hope that he will 

 be followed in the use of the wrong name, " Motacilla flava 

 viridis." When I wrote the account of the palsearctic Wagtails 

 in 1905, I was not aware of Billberg's book, which was then 

 hardly known, though in 1906 Professor Lonnberg made it 

 sufficiently known to all ornithologists. It is only a clever 

 captatio benevolentice lectorum for his system that Mr. Witherby 

 suggests : " later we may expect some diligent antiquarian 

 to discover some older and equally unknown name." If 

 there is a still older name it will doubtless soon be discovered, 

 but if there is none, such a thing can, of course, not happen. 



If the rule is adopted, that the names of the latest list of 

 British birds are to be used in writings on British birds, the 

 same rule should apply to European, African, and American 

 birds. We would then have the result that in mentioning a 

 species in articles on British, European and African or 

 American birds perhaps three different names are adopted ! 

 If, on the other hand, the oldest name at present known is 

 adopted we shall have one name instead of several for the 

 same bird, and if a still older one is discovered it will equally 

 be used in all writings. This example shows the impossibility 

 of following Mr. Witherby's proposal. It would suffice if 

 only articles on British birds were written, but it is necessary 

 that the same bird should be called by the same name by 

 everyone at the same time, and not that a nomenclature 

 should be used which may take the fancy of this or that 

 writer on British birds. 



Ernst Hartert. 



[Very little consideration will show that in this magazine it 

 is necessary to follow a standard in specific names which is 

 readily accessible to all our readers, the majority of whom are 

 not professed systematists. There is no such work, so far as 

 I know, which gives the specific names of all the birds on the 

 British list according to the system of strict priority, even 



