ON TRINOMIAL NOMENCLATURE. 99 



specific rank to what is not a species. " If it is only," continues 

 our reviewer, "' a variety of Tardus migratorius, why let it stand 

 as a species, on the same footing as the type from which appa- 

 rently it so slightly differs ? " To this we say, it does not stand 

 as a species, but merely as a subspecies or variety.* Trinomials 

 are never used to designate a species ; they always stand for what 

 are commonly called subspecies or varieties. " Turdus migratorius 

 propinquus'" is only a short way of writing " Turdus migratorius, 

 subspec. propinquus," or " Turdus migratorius, var. propinquus." 

 It is so understood by all who use it, and in no other sense. Our 

 trinomials result simply from the dropping of the cumbersome 

 connective " subsp." or "var." commonly used in cases where we 

 employ simply the trinomial. It is not therefore, to borrow the 

 words of our reviewer, " simply to return to the old method that 

 Linnaeus is celebrated for having — as we hoped — caused his 

 followers to discard, naming a bird by a diagnostic sentence." 

 Neither has it the remotest tendency or bearing in that direction, 

 either in origin or function. Instead of doing such violence to 

 the Stricklandian Code, — instead of being " both retrograde and 

 misleading," — it is a device to meet simply and explicitly, in 

 accordance with the spirit if not with the letter of that "Code," a 

 condition of things unknown and unsuspected when that, in most 

 respects, admirable system of nomenclatural rules was conceived. 

 Instead of bewailing and denouncing the " evil example of the 

 Americans" in the use of trinomials, we sincerely hope that 

 Europeans will examine into the occasion, basis, and import of 

 this practice, which is believed by those who use it to tend merely 

 to simplicity and conciseness, while it clearly recognises the status 

 and relationship of the subspecific types to which, as above said, 

 it is alone applied. 



In consequence of the recent thorough exploration in the 

 interest of Science of nearly every part of our " Great West," it 

 may be safely said that no other equal portion of the earth's 

 surface is so well known ornithologically as North America, and 

 that no amount of material from a like area has ever passed 

 through the hands of specialists. This statement is made in no 



* Dr. Coues, it is true, gives it a distinct number, as we think unwisely, 

 and contrary to his and all other previous check lists of North American 

 birds ; and in the present case we fear his so doing has aided misconception 

 on the part of the reviewer here referred to. 



