NOTES ON NOMENCLATURE, III. 127 



distinguished naturalists, such as orginally compiled, and 

 again, later, revised the Code. 



The Code, admirable as a first evolution of system out of 

 chaos, has naturally in practice proved insufficient for 

 all the varied and complicated combinations of conditions that 

 arise, and is moreover in the opinion of many great Con- 

 tinental and American naturalists, distinctly in error in some 

 points, e.g., in the rejection of not a little truly binomial nomen- 

 clature such as Brunnich's, and much of Brisson's. 



Surely the time has come for the revision of the Code, in the 

 light of the further experience of the past thirty years, and its 

 re-enactment on a broader basis. 



From private correspondence I am led to believe that many 

 eminent Continental and American ornithologists would willingly 

 waive points that they now insist on if we would meet them 

 half way, for the sake of securing a generally-received Code, 

 which would ensure uniformity of specific nomenclature in the 

 great mass at any rate of new standard ornithological works 

 and periodicals. 



I am informed by a gentleman, thoroughly competent to offer 

 such an opinion (which I myself am in no position to verify) 

 that there are fully 8,000 species of birds, of which the proper 

 specific names, according to any system that might be definitely 

 decided on, could be settled once and for all without difficulty. 



Of course, with such a list once published with the requisite 

 (it need not be exhaustive) synomyms, and accepted by the 

 ornithological leaders, not of Great Britain only but of Europe 

 and America, all the time, and printing now wasted over the 

 synonyms of these 8,000 species might be saved for real 

 ornithological work. 



How great and terrible that waste is, every one who has 

 even dabbled in this finiken, frivolous, but alas as matters now 

 stand, almost inevitable branch of our work will freely admit, 

 but the great tendency that this has to absorb the attention, 

 and divert to mere words the energies and talents that should 

 be devoted to facts is even more lamentable, though much less 

 generally acknowledged and realized. 



Surely the time has come for a strenuous and combined effort 

 on the part of all who love science unselfishly, and for her own 

 sake to confine this great and growing evil within the narrow- 

 est possible limits. Surely the time has come, not merely for 

 a revised British Code, but for a new Code, universal as are the 

 aims and blessings of science herself. 



Science will have to leaven the whole mass of mankind 

 ere these, now wholly absorbed in the ephemeral pursuits of 

 the day, selfish money grubbing or position grasping, (thinly 



