A^ol. XXXV,] 76 



very true, that we ought to strongly deprecate " furor 

 genericus.''' 



Mr. Ogilvie-Grant : I am afraid I cannot add very 

 much to what has already been said. Genera, as we all 

 know, are purely arbitrary divisions which we use in 

 grouping together allied species and subspecies, so that we 

 may be able to deal with them more conveniently in classi- 

 fication. There are those who, in my opinion, recognise too 

 few genera, and, on the other hand, there are people who 

 place nearly every species in a separate genus. Personally, 

 I should never dream of uniting in one genus such groups 

 as the Linnets and Goldfinches, the Sparrow-Hawks and 

 Goshawks, or the Pochards and Golden-eyes — but that is 

 a matter of opinion. Linnets and Goldfinches appear to me 

 to be clearly-defined and natural genera ; Sparrow-Hawks 

 and Goshawks differ entirely in the structure aud proportions 

 of their feet, and Pochards and Golden-eyes in their colour- 

 pattern, even in the ducklings. 



I think the obviously correct way of dealing with this 

 difficult matter is to follow a middle course : the more expe- 

 rience we have in dealing with the class Aves generally, the 

 better we shall be able to decide instinctively what constitutes 

 a genus. Genera do not exist in Nature, and it is therefore 

 impossible to lay down any hard-and-fast rules as to what 

 constitutes them. What are generic characters in one 

 group of birds may be specific in another, and in grouping 

 species one must be guided by experience and a proper 

 sense of proportion. The deep-seated characters should 

 be reserved for the diff'erentiation of families and sub- 

 families, not genera, and should be used to link up and 

 associate the latter in a natural manner : in tliis respect, I 

 think Mr. Pycraft has somewhat confused the issue. 



As regards the splitting of genera into sections : as 

 an instance of this I have brought with me examples of 

 a large genus of Flycatchers — Monarcha — to illustrate my 

 views on this subject. Dr. Hartert, I think, agrees with me 

 in considering that all the species included should be kept 

 together in one genus, the structure and colour-pattern being 



