July 10, 1884] 



NATURE 



257 



Mr. Sharpe then read his paper : — I approach the dis- 

 cussion of this subject without the least prejudice either for 

 or against the adoption of trinomial nomenclature. It has 

 been for some time recognised and allowed by zoologists 

 on the other side of the Atlantic, and to a certain extent the 

 principle has been admitted by more than one worker in 

 the Old World, but the presence in this country of one of the 

 most able advocates of the system in the person of that distin- 

 guished American zoologist, Dr. Elliott Coues, has recently 

 stimulated the thoughts of many of us as to the wisdom of its 

 adoption for the zoology of the Old World, and it occurred to 

 me that a friendly meeting to discuss the matter with Dr. Coues 

 and some of our leading British zoologists could certainly do no 

 harm, and might be productive of a considerable amount of 

 good. Understanding from Dr. Coues that he would not object 

 to attend a small conference of zoologists on this subject if we 

 desired to talk over the matter, I appealed to many of the latter 

 to appear to-day, and I think that this gathering of British natural- 

 ists, under the presidency of our esteemed director, Prof. Flower, 

 is sufficient to show that that there is a considerable amount of 

 keen interest felt in the solution of the question. 



It is now more than ten years ago that Dr. Coues, in his 

 " Key to the North American Birds," first began to adopt the 

 trinomial nomenclature which is now so generally accepted by 

 American ornithologists. But until quite recently both he and 

 his coadjutors have been in the habit of inserting the word var. 

 before the sub-specific name. At present, however, the system 

 which he adopts is trinomialism pure and simple, and this is shown 

 in the second edition of his " Key," which has just appeared. 



Now I can only speak as an ornithologist, and my views must 

 be regarded as purely personal ; but I do think that it is good 

 for zoologists in general to learn from the lips of Dr. Coues exactly 

 what the system is which he proposes to adopt for ornitho- 

 logy, and to what lengths it would lead us. I shall listen with 

 attention and respect to the remarks with which any of my col- 

 leagues learned in other branches of zoology may favour us this 

 afternoon. 



It seems to me that there are certain facts in nature which we 

 all of tts recognise as facts, but about the expression of which 

 many of us entertain different views. I propose merely to place 

 before you certain difficult aspects of the question as they pre- 

 sent themselves to me, and I shall be glad to have an expres- 

 sion of opinion upon the facts which I bring forward. I would 

 therefore crave permission for a few moments to run over some 

 of the published volumes of the " Catalogue of Birds," and to 

 discuss some changes of nomenclature that might be involved if 

 the trinomial system were to be adopted in a second edition of 

 that work. It will be noticed that in 1874 I recognised the 

 existence of ' ' sub-species " among the Accipilres, and I now 

 lay on the table one of the most interesting examples of what I 

 conceive to be a series of sub-species, or representative races, of 

 one dominant form. In Southern Africa we have a small 

 Goshawk called Astur polyzonoides, which inhabits the whole 

 of the South African sub-region, but does not, so far as my 

 knowledge goes, extend beyond the Zambesi. In Senegambia 

 and North- East Africa it is replaced by a race called Astur 

 sphenurus, in which the colour of the under-surface is much more 

 delicate than in Astur polyzonoides. From Central Russia, 

 throughout Turkey, Asia Minor, Persia, and Syria, a large race 

 called Astur brevipes replaces the two foregoing sub-species, and 

 forms a third. From Baluchistan, throughout India, and Ceylon, 

 a somewhat smaller form, Astur badius, takes up the running, 

 and throughout the Burmese countries, extending to Formosa 

 and Hainan, we have yet another race, Astur poliopsis, which is a 

 purer and more elegantly coloured edition of Astur badius. This 

 little group of Goshawks has been well worked out, and we may 

 fairly presume that we have the facts before us. Now I should 

 like to know if this is a case where we might adopt the trinomial 

 system, and call these birds 



Astur badius, 

 Astur badius poliopsis, 

 Astur badius brevipes, 

 Astur badius sphenurus, 

 Astur badius polyzonoides. 



At present, were I writing about the South African bird or the 

 Abyssinian bird, I should never speak of them as Astur badius, 

 which is the name belonging to the Indian bird exclusively, and 

 I am not quite sure that we gain in this case anything whatever 

 by adopting trinomial nomenclature. The same parallel may be 



drawn with some of the species of Scops among the Owls, as may 

 be seen by the series now exhibited, and here trinomial nomen- 

 clature might perhaps be employed. Thus the representative 

 races of Sops giu would be .V. giu capensis in Africa, j - . gilt 

 penn itus from the Himalayas, i>. giu minuttts from Ceylon, .S\ 

 gin stictono'.us from China, S. giu jtiponicus from Japan, S. giu 

 malayanus from Malacca, S. giu rufipennis from Madras, and S. 

 giu In licit from North-Western India. 



In the third volume of the "Catalogue" I have again freely 

 admitted "sub-species," as, for instance, with some Crows, e.g. 

 Coroue microrhyncha from the Sunda Islands, replaced in India 

 and China by C. levaillantii, which extends to Eastern Siberia, 

 but is further replaced in Japan by a large race — C. japonensis. 

 In this instance I believe that the trinomial nomenclature could 

 be employed with advantage, for if we spoke of C. macrorhyncha 

 japonensis or C. macrorhyncha levaillantii, it would convey to us 

 an absolutely definite idea, viz. that these were merely forms of 

 the typical C. macrorhyncha with a distinct geographical area 

 assigned to each. 



To take another case of a different kind. I place on the table 

 several species of Chibia from the Malay Archipelago, and the 

 difficulty which anybody would find at first sight in the separa- 

 tion of these Moluccan Drongos can be explained off-hand by 

 the fact that they are nothing more nor less than representative 

 insular forms of one dominant species. If, therefore, you speak 

 of these birds as Chibia carbonaria from the Papuan group of 

 islands, represented by C. carbonaria assimilis in the Aru Islands, 

 by C. carbonaria aiuboinensis in Ceram and Amboina, and again 

 by C. carbonaria atrocwrulea in Batchian and Gilolo, I contend 

 that these names, although long, convey an exact impression of the 

 value of these forms, which are so closely allied as to be almost 

 indistinguishable. A more difficult question arises when we 

 come to treat of the Yellow Wagtails, concerning which, 

 curiously enough, there has been quite a consensus of opinion 

 among some of the German ornithologists that they ought to 

 be treated trinomially. Thus in the " Vogel Ost-Afrikas," 

 by Drs. Finsch and Hartlaub, we find these birds spoken of 

 as MolacUla flava mtlanocephala, &c. , and the same phraseology 

 is adopted by Baron von Heuglinin the " Ornithologie Nord-ost 

 Afrikas." Having recently studied these birds, I can only say 

 that I think the employment of trinomial nomenclature by these 

 authors was somewhat premature, inasmuch as, from the show- 

 ing of the writers themselves, these birds to which they gave 

 trinomial names are not only migratory, but have well-defined 

 geographical areas of distribution. I myself consider that the 

 intermediate forms which undoubtedly exist are due to another 

 and totally different cause, viz. to hybridisation, inasmuch as 

 many of these birds occupy nearly the same winter areas in 

 Africa, and doubtless many of them pair with birds of an allied 

 form on their return to Europe. Thus Motacilla kaleniczenkii, 

 which is M. melanoccphala with a white eyebrow, is probably 

 (although there is no proof of the fact) the latter species with a 

 strain of the white-eyebrowed .'!/. Jlr.a admixed, as both M. 

 kaleniczenkii and M. melanoccphala occur together. 



There is one advantage which we must all admit that the 

 American zoologists possess over ourselves, and that is, that they 

 have a clear idea of the natural geographical divisions of their 

 continent, and their zoology has been studied from many distinct 

 points of view, such as the presence or absence of rainfall, &c, 

 and it only requires a glance at Mr. Hume's essay on the distri- 

 bution of Indian birds with respect to the distribution of rainfall 

 throughout the Indian peninsula to see how very important is 

 this aspect of the subject. Even in the British Islands there are 

 variations in the size and coloration of some of our resident 

 birds, as any one may learn from Mr. F. Bond, who has de- 

 voted sixty years of his life to the study of British ornitho- 

 logy, and who now has one of the most interesting collections in 

 this country. But when we come to study the birds of Europe 

 and the Palaearctic region generally, how small is our real know- 

 ledge, and what vast areas are there concerning the ornithology 

 of which we know next to nothing ! Great praise is, therefore, 

 due to men like Dr. Menzbier, who has just written the first part 

 of an elaborate treatise on the geographical distribution of birds 

 in Russia ; but it will be a long time before we can have in any 

 museum such a series of birds as is possessed by the Smithsonian 

 Institution for any one wishing to study the geographical distri- 

 bution of the birds of North America. The British Museum is 

 fully alive to the importance of the question, but I find that 

 there is nothing more difficult than to procure from my col- 

 leagues in the other countries of Europe a representative set of 



