1896. ] RULES OF ZOOLOGICAL NOMENCLATURE. 315 
reference to locality. The students of geographical variation in 
America, particularly those of Mammals and Birds, may have gone 
a little into the extreme in recognizing subspecies, but there can be 
no question that the phenomenon occurs, and is well worthy of 
record under a name of some sort. The British forms of the Coal- 
Tit and the Marsh-Tit, which have been named Parus britannicus 
and Parus dresseri, appear to me to be good instances of subspecies. 
I should propose to call them Parus ater britannicus and Parus 
palustris dresseri, while the corresponding forms of the continent 
should be termed Parus ater typicus and Parus palustris typicus 
when they are spoken of in the restricted sense only. In ordinary 
cases, however, it is sufficient to say Parus ater and Parus palustris 
without any reference to the subspecies. To give these slight and 
in some cases barely recognizable variations the same rank as is 
awarded to Turdus musicus and Turdus viscivorus seems to me to be 
highly undesirable, and the recognition of subspecies indicated by 
trinomials gives us an easy way out of the difficulty. 
Finally I may be permitted to say that in questions of priority, 
as in everything else, it is the extreme men that lead us into 
difficulties, and that have made the very mention of “ priority ” 
distasteful to some of our best workers in Zoology. Some ardent 
spirits seem to take a pleasure in inventing excuses for alterations 
in the best and most long-established names without considering, 
and without even caring, whether subsequent writers will consent to 
follow them. More moderate systematists are wise enough to let 
names remain as they are, unless there is an absolute necessity for 
making a change. In the case of many of the names of the older 
authors, which we are invited to associate sometimes with one 
species and sometimes with another, it is often simply a matter of 
opinion or, I may say, conjecture as to which out of half-a-dozen 
species they were intended to refer. Accipiter korshun of S. G. 
Gmelin is a noted instance of this sort. It was first resurrectionized 
in 1874 by Dr. Sharpe as the proper name of the Black Kite. Other 
authors have referred it to the Golden Eagle, and even, I believe, 
to one of the Owls. Surely it is better to consign such an indefi- 
nite term as this to the limbo of unrecognizable synonyms. In 
reviving the name Anser fubalis for the Bean-Goose—a term which 
has slept in peace ever since it was invented by Latham in 1785— 
we must allow that one of our leading ornithologists had better 
grounds to go upon. There can be no question that Latham 
translated the name of “ Bean-Goose” into Latin as “ Anser fabalis.” 
At the same time there can be little doubt that he did not consider 
that in doing this he was inventing a new specific term for that 
well-known bird, which, like everybody else for the last 110 years, 
he continued to call Anser segetum. It is surely sufficient to quote 
such uncertain names amongst our synonyms without adopting 
them as definite designations of familiar species. It is, I repeat, 
the extremist and the sensationalist, who strive to astonish us by 
carrying out the law of priority to its “ bitter end,” that have 
caused the disgust which many of us feel at the mere mention 
of priority in nomenclature. 
