REMARKS ON THE GENUS SULA. 313 



webs are also red, and the claws are reddish. Found on the 

 coasts of Africa and America.''' 



I have had toexamine nearly 50 descriptions of Boobies 

 during the last few days, written by naturalists, " ancient 

 and modern/' but I have met with none more satisfactory 

 on the whole than this praslinnean one. 



This is a fair sample of Brisson's descriptions, and this is the 

 man whom English naturalists have seen fit to set aside entirely, 

 except as regards such genera as Linnaeus neglected to adopt 

 from him, because his nomenclature was not strictly binomial I 

 Mr. Strickland and the others, associated with him, went, it 

 seems to me quite beyond what was necessary in the matter 

 of binomialism, when they on this account virtually ostracised 

 Brisson (the great majority of whose names are truly bino- 

 mial) and fixed upon the Xllth edition of Linnaeus' Syst. Nat. 

 as the starting point of all specific nomenclature. 



As an ornithologist, in my humble opinion, Brisson ranks 

 far above Linnasus, who, great and broad-minded man as he 

 was, had not even a sufficient insight into our particular 

 branch of Natural History to avail himself of much that Brisson 

 had done ready to his hand. 



English ornithologists of a particular school are constantly 

 carping at American and other authors, for ignoring the British 

 Association Rules in regard to the point from which specific 

 nomenclature is to date, but those rules are, it seems to me, 

 inherently wrong, and in so far as they rejected Brisson and 

 adopted Linnasus, grasp only the shadow and let go the sub- 

 stance, and it is only natural that the mind of every just man, 

 who takes up and studies these fathers of our science, should 

 revolt against a rule that involves such injustice to one of 

 the greatest and most accurate of the founders of ornithology. 



The time has not perhaps yet come for this, but most assured- 

 ly these rules will have to be revised, and sooner or later our 

 more liberal successors will insist on doing that justice to 

 Brisson and others that English ornithologists now deny them. 



Let us now turn to the Linnaeus' description : — " Tail, cunei- 

 form ; bill serrated ; body white ; all the quills and face black." 



" The upper mandible towards the base, as it were, denticu- 

 lated on either side. Nostrils closed, face and orbital depres- 

 sion in my dry specimens black, whether in life they are red, 

 as Brisson says, I do not know."' 



But for his quotation of Brisson, with a reference to the 

 passage already quoted, it would be impossible to say to what 

 species Linnasus referred, and I think it extremely likely that 

 he really had another species before him and erroneously referred 

 to Brisson's description of candidus. However, this reference, 



