722 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVI. No. 673 



As Mr. Stone lias said some very pleasant 

 things in his notice (I. c.) of this paper, I 

 regret that he seems to have so imperfectly 

 understood its scope and methods as to have 

 been misled into some erroneous criticisms of 

 it. For instance, its scope is distinctly stated 

 to be " the genera and subgenera of the second 

 (last) edition of the A. O. U. Check List and 

 its several supplements, for the purpose of 

 showing how the types, as now currently ac- 

 cepted, came to be so recognized." Only two 

 of the eleven genera Mr. Stone states to have 

 been omitted from this paper are embraced 

 in the Check List and its supplements. He 

 evidently has confused the unpublished de- 

 cisions of the committee with those actually 

 published. Of the two subgenera omitted, one 

 has been abandoned by its author and the 

 other has lost standing; so both were purposely 

 (but perhaps unwisely, as now appears) left 

 out of consideration. 



He also charges me with using various 

 methods to reach my results, as " ' elimina- 

 tion,' ' subsequent designation,' ' general con- 

 sent ' and ' restriction.' " As a matter of fact, 

 I had a right to use each of these methods, 

 under my proposition to show how the types 

 as now recognized were determined, in any 

 case where they were evidently employed. 

 Obviously elimination (in its restricted sense) 

 can not apply to (1) genera based solely upon 

 a diagnosis, (2) to genera containing origin- 

 ally only congeneric species, nor (3) to gen- 

 era containing two or more congeneric spe- 

 cies after the non-congeneric species have 

 been removed. I gave the results of elimina- 

 tion where it applied, and added, as matter 

 of presumable interest, the other information. 

 For instance, as stated in my introduction (p. 

 286), I became impressed in the course of my 

 work " with the great frequency with which 

 the types of genera and subgenera as desig- 

 nated by him [Gray] in 1840 to 1855 are still 

 the currently accepted types." And added: 

 " The agreement was of such striking fre- 

 quency that finally after my manuscript was 

 typewritten and revised for publication I com- 

 pared my results with Gray's designations, 

 and interpolated, as an afterthought, 'type 



as designated by Gray,' " etc. It is therefore 

 rather surprising to be informed by my re- 

 viewer that I am so inconsistent as sometimes 

 to accept Gray's type designations and at 

 other times to ignore them, or even deliber- 

 ately reject them; and that owing to my fol- 

 lowing so many different methods " my con- 

 clusions with regard to the types of many of 

 the older polytypic genera will hardly be ac- 

 cepted." 



Mr. Stone's criticisms as a whole show how 

 a strong mental bias may blunt one's percep- 

 tions. Space can not be taken here to point 

 out his misstatements in detail ; nor would any 

 notice be taken of them were it not that my 

 paper can have only a limited circulation, and 

 is thus likely to be judged by Mr. Stone's 

 presentation of it rather than on its actual 

 merits, or demerits, as the case may be. In 

 a work of this character mistakes of various 

 sorts are inevitable; it is impossible to repro- 

 duce in print thousands of citations without 

 clerical or typographical errors, or without 

 some errors of omission. In addition to the 

 several actual errors pointed out by Mr. Stone, 

 for the indication of which I am grateful, 

 there are others that he fails to mention. 



In regard to Gray's work as a first reviser, 

 I stated (I. c, p. 286) : 



Of the genera published prior to 1855, the types, 

 as now recognized, are the same for about 90 per 

 cent, of the genera as those indicated as the types 

 by Gray in 1855; in about half of the remaining 

 cases Gray took as type a species not originally 

 included in the genus. The discrepancy in the 

 other eases is due to Gray's point of departure 

 for generic names, since in twenty instances in 

 the case of North American birds alone he took 

 genera from Ray (1676), from Moehring (1752), 

 or from Linnfeus prior to 1758 (1735-1748). 



In all such cases his type designations have 

 been consistently repudiated by subsequent 

 systematists, while all those made in accord- 

 ance with the essential rules of all nomencla- 

 tural codes have been adopted and form a part 

 of our standard nomenclature. 



Gray was a pioneer in the work of designa- 

 ting types of genera, and his great influence 

 in reducing the nomenclatural chaos of his 

 day to some degree of order and stability ap- 



