149 



My friend Mr. Sharpe adopts, in regard to several species 

 included in his third Volume, names which appear to me to be 

 indefensible from his stand point as par excellence a British 

 Ornithologist. 



For instance, at page 146, he designates the Chough, Gracu- 

 lus graculus. This is in direct contravention of rule 13 of 

 the Brit. Assoc. Code. Surely he who so ably presides over the 

 British Ornithological collection should not set an example of 

 transgressing that Code ! 



In this particular case too no necessity for it exists. 



For this genus three generic names only appear to have been 

 proposed — Coracia, Brisson, 1760; Graculus, Koch, 1816; and 

 Fregilus, Cuvier, 18 17. 



Brisson's generic name, though available under rule, must, I 

 admit, be rejected as too close to Coracias, Linnaeus, which has 

 by rule precedence, only such genera of Brisson being allowed 

 as are supplemental to, and do not interfere with, those of Lin- 

 naeus. 



We, therefore, fall back up upon Graculus, the next oldest* 

 name. No doubt this was also a Linnasan genus, but as Mr. 

 Sharpe points out one antecedent to the twelfth edition of the Syst. 

 Nat., and not retained in this latter, and, therefore, according to 

 the Code null and void. The Code may be wrong, but so long 

 as it is a Code we English are bound to abide by it, under 

 penalty of introducing that abomination of confusion that 

 hangs like a fog over the nomenclature of Codeless writers. 



We have only then to fix the earliest specific name. No 

 doubt graculus, Linn., is the earliest (by one page), but that 

 is inadmissible under the Code, we having accepted it as the 

 generic name. 



The next name is another of Linnaeus', viz. " eremita", S.N.I. 

 159. Badly as the species is described under this name, the 

 " rostro pedibusque rubris," and the references given, leave no 

 reasonable doubt that the bird thus named was the Chough, 

 and it seems to me to follow that this latter should stand as 



Graculus eremitus [Lin.) 



In December last Captain O'Moore Creagh shot a fine male 

 Merganser or Goosander (Atergus castor) near Ajmere. This 

 species is of course a mere straggler to these parts. 



* I do not consider the Chough, and Alpine Chough congeneric, but even if they 

 were, as far as I can make out, Koch's uame was published earlier than Vieillot'a 

 Pyrrhocorax, though both date from 1816. 



