230 General Notes. cal 
and voted for it then, and heartily applaud it now; for, if not the most 
convenient, it is the most logical and biological procedure to pass from 
the ‘ lowest,’ z.e., the most generalized forms to those which are the 
most specialized, or ‘highest’; such being apparently the ‘natural’ 
course of evolutionary processes. I also think we did the business well, 
on the whole; nobody doubts that our List passes from bottom to top of 
the avian series, about as smoothly as the families could be arranged in 
any single linear sequence — understanding, of course, that zo one linear 
arrangement can possibly be natural, yet that some one such is a 
mechanical necessity of book-making. 
Granting then, that we turned the series of orders and families hind 
part before in the best possible manner, or at least in a manner free from 
obvious objection, a very queer inconsistency crops up in our treatment of 
the contents of the numerous families. The same rule of reversal should 
of course have been applied to the genera and species of each family. 
But in point of fact such rule was not applied, in all instances at any rate. 
To put the case in a nutshell, we turned the list of families hind part 
before, but generally left the sequence of genera in each family as they 
had been in the previous lists I have named, which were modeled on the 
high to low principle. That this is a fact, anyone can satisfy himself by 
inspection of our Check-List; but the agitated searcher for light on this 
point may have to go through the whole of our work, before the full 
magnitude of our offence dawns upon him. I will put him on the track 
by citing a single case of what I mean, and he may follow up the investi- 
gation to any extent he pleases. 
In the family Anatide, the general treatment of the subfamilies and 
genera had been, in those lists which went on the high to low order, 
to begin with the Swans or Geese, Anserine or Cygnine; go on to the 
Anatine, which in fact inosculate with Anserine through the Shell- 
drake group, etc.; pass thence to the Fuliguline; and finish with the 
Mergine. We use these identical subfamilies, and, as I think, advisedly ; 
we also have after a fashion reversed their sequence, so that my criticism 
is to some extent weakened in this very case. But no one doubts the 
specially close connection of Mergine with Fuliguline ; assuredly these 
two subfamilies should come together. Instead of that we begin, cor- 
rectly, with the Mergine, as the ‘lowest’ members of the family; then 
jump directly to the Anatine ; begin the Anatine with Avas, at the top 
of the list, and run the gamut of its genera from ‘ high to low,’ in the 
good old-fashioned way; put Azy far from its obvious and undisputed 
position; pass on to Fuliguline and run dowz that list of genera to 
the Scoters, Eiders, and Erismaturine genera; whence we jump again with 
admirable agility but questionable propriety to the Geese proper, Anser- 
ine, and so on to the Cygnine. 
I am not here raising any real taxonomic question. I assume that we 
are in substantial agreement of opinion as to the natural relationships of 
the subfamilies of Anatidz, but contend that their sequence in our List 
