1896.] BULBS OF ZOOLOGICAL KOMEKCLATtJIlll. 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 Parv^ hritannicus 

 and Parus dresseri, appear to me to be good instances of subspecies. 

 I should propose to call them Parus ater Iritannims and Parus 

 palusiris dresseri, while the corresponding forms of the continent 

 should be termed Pants ater typicus and Partts 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 system.atists 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-ar-dozen 

 species they were intended to refer. Accipiter horsliun 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, 1 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 nvimQ Anser fahalis 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 " Anserfabalis." 

 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. 



