266 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXI. No. 790 



E. C; B. Quaritcli, 11 Grafton Street, New 

 Bond Street, W.; Dulau & Co., 37 Soho 

 Square, W., and at the British Museum 

 (Natural History), Cromwell Eoad, S. W. 

 1909. All rights reserved. 8vo, pp. sx -}- 

 694. 



The issue of Volume V. of this great work, 

 late in 1909, brings to a conclusion an under- 

 taking of the greatest importance to system- 

 atic ornithologists. The first volume ap- 

 peared in 1899, the second in 1900, the third 

 in 1901 and the fourth in 1903, the whole com- 

 prising about 1,700 pages. The work is simi- 

 lar in plan to the late C. K. Gray's " Hand- 

 list of Birds" (3 vols., 8vo, 1869-71, British 

 Museum), being a list of not only the genera 

 and species, but of the higher groups, in sys- 

 tematic sequence. The classification followed 

 is that proposed by Dr. Sharpe in 1891. No 

 one could have had a better equipment for the 

 preparation of such a work than its lamented 

 author,' who wrote the greater part of the 

 British Museum " Catalogue of Birds," and 

 under whose supervision the whole (27 vols., 

 1874-98) was prepared and published, and 

 whose knowledge of the external characters of 

 birds and the literature of ornithology was 

 doubtless unequaled by that of any ornitholo- 

 gist the world has yet seen. His " Hand- 

 list " is thus superior, in both method and de- 

 tail, to any of its predecessors in the same 

 field. 



Under the genera references are given to 

 preceding works where the group is mono- 

 graphieally treated, and under the species to 

 the British Museum " Catalogue of Birds," 

 where full descriptions and citations of the 

 principal references are given, or, in the case 

 of species published since the appearance of 

 the " Catalogue of Birds," to the original 

 place of description; there are also often ref- 

 erences in footnotes to authorities who have 

 recently expressed opinions regarding the 

 status or proper nomenclature of certain forms 

 different from those adopted in the text. In 

 order to secure the greatest degree of com- 



^Dr. Sharpe died on Christmas Day, 1909, after 

 a short illness, from pneumonia, at the age of 

 sixty-two years. 



pleteness and accuracy attainable, Dr. Sharpe 

 sought the cooperation of leading authorities 

 throughout the world, to whom he sent proof 

 sheets of the work for revision. These cor- 

 respondents numbered nearly thirty, of whom 

 more than a fourth are residents of the 

 United States. The work thus carries a de- 

 gree of authoritativeness that could have been 

 obtained in no other way, in respect at least 

 to its minor details. 



In judging a work of this character, it is 

 important to know the view point of the au- 

 thor, especially with reference to the nomen- 

 clatorial standpoint and the species question. 

 Unfortunately Dr. Sharpe was one of the few 

 ornithologists of the older school who were un- 

 able to accept the modern idea of subspecies, 

 and hence all the forms he has seen fit to 

 recognize are catalogued as full species, the 

 binomial form of names being strictly adliered 

 to throughout the work. Hence many forms 

 originally proposed as subspecies, and so rec- 

 ognized by later authorities, together with 

 many discarded even by their proposers, are 

 here catalogued as full species and stand on 

 an even footing with forms of far higher 

 taxonomic value. Their real status and re- 

 lationships, or even the real worthlessness of 

 many, are thus concealed from all but experts 

 on the particular groups to which such forms 

 respectively belong. While Dr. Sharpe thus 

 catalogues " 18,939 species," this number, it 

 should be remembered, includes all currently 

 recognized " forms " of birds, but many of 

 them are not " species " in the commonly ac- 

 cepted sense, which probably do not exceed 

 13,000. 



The nomenclature adopted is also, unfor- 

 tunately, not in accord with the requirements 

 of now commonly accepted rules. At the time 

 when the early volumes of the British Mu- 

 seum Catalogue of Birds was prepared, the 

 British Association Eules of Nomenclature, 

 promulgated in 1842, were the only rules then 

 in vogue, so far as rules of nomenclature 

 were then respected. These rules provided that 

 zoological nomenclature should date from 1766, 

 or from Linnseus's tweKth edition of his " Sys- 

 tema Naturte." Later the tenth, or 1768, edl- 



