■5^0 Allen on Zoological Nomenclature. [October 



US, and also to Mr. Bowdler Shavpe, to whose zeal and energy 

 the organization of the meeting is entirely due." 



It appears from the report of the meeting that the chief objec- 

 tion, and almost the only one advanced by the ornithologists 

 present, to the system of trinomial nomenclature, was its liability 

 to abuse on the part of indiscreet writers. This objection we 

 incline to think is overrated, and is applicable with greater or 

 less force to any system. The other objections have really little 

 weight, and were raised mainly by those who, as their remarks 

 clearly show, had not a proper conception of the workings of the 

 proposed system. 



Mr. Seebohm's pi^oposed compromise is certainly worthy of 

 serious consideration, respecting which we beg to submit in this 

 connection a few comments. In short, Mr. Seebohm would 

 adopt trinomials pure and simple for subspecies, or for well- 

 marked intergrading geographical forms, and to this extent is in 

 full accord with the 'American school,' but would engraft thereon 

 a means of designating the connecting links between such forms, 

 through use of a polynomial designation. There is certainly a 

 real gain in this, offset to some degree by the objection of cum- 

 brousness. While still trinomial in principle and spirit, it 

 practically adds a fourth term. The idea, as now fully unfolded 

 by Mr. Seebohm, is not new to us on this side of the water, and 

 though it has not been publicly brought forward, it has been to 

 some extent considered privately and rejected — perhaps too hastily 

 — as likely to add, as least seemingly, complexity and an undue 

 burden to the system. Some years since, while engaged on a 

 monograph of the American Squirrels, I eiuployed a modification 

 of Mr. Seebohm's method in labelling specimens, and have used 

 it, and know of its being used by others to a small extent on 

 labels in private cabinets, to express the relationships of connec- 

 ting links between i-ecognized subspecies. Without some such 

 compromise such intergrading specimens cannot be satisfactorily 

 designated, there being many such — all inhabiting certain inter- 

 mediate geographical areas — that cannot be referred with pro- 

 priety to one form rather than to another, they being so exactly 

 intermediate between them ; and yet to give them still another 

 name, thus raising them to the rank of an additional subspecies, 

 seems an unwarranted or at least injudicious piece of refinement. 

 But for the proper designation of such connecting links Mr. 

 Seebohm's compromise seems to go but half the way. For 



