The Audubon Societies 



i35 



A Bi-monthly Magazine 

 Devoted to the Study and Protection of Birds 



OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE AUDUBON SOCIETIES 



Edited by FRANK M. CHAPMAN 

 Published by THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 



Vol. IV Published August 1, 1902 No. 4 



COPYRIGHTED, 1902, BY FRANK M. CHAPMAN. 



Bird-Lore's Motto: 

 A Bird in the Bush is Worth Two in the Hand. 



The eleventh supplement to the Check- 

 List of North American Birds published by 

 the American Ornithologists' Union in 1886, 

 appears in the July 'Auk.' It practically 

 covers the period from April, 1901, to April, 

 1902, and an examination of its contents 

 reveals, in a measure, the activity prevailing 

 during the past year in the technical side of 

 the study of North American birds. 



Thus we find that the committee has en- 

 dorsed some thirty-nine and rejected twenty- 

 seven proposed changes in names; has 

 accepted as additions to our fauna some 

 twenty-two new sub-species and two new 

 species, and has refused to recognize ten 

 proposed ' new ' forms. In one year, there- 

 fore, over sixty 'additions or changes have 

 been made in the Check-List and with 

 action on over fifty cases postponed, the lay 

 student may well ask whether zoological 

 nomenclature is, after all, the end and not 

 the means of zoological science. 



On the surface the prospects for stability 

 in the names of our birds are indeed dis- 

 couraging. Of the original 1886 Check- 

 List, the result of several years' work of a 

 committee of experts, comparatively little 

 remains in its original form, and each 

 succeeding year shows no decrease in the 

 number of proposed emendations and addi- 

 tions which the Committee on Revision is 

 called upon to consider. Small wonder, 

 then, if the student to whom a name is in 

 truth a means, condemns in disgust the 

 whole matter of nomenclature technicalities 

 and at the same time the disturbers of the 

 Check-List. 



There are, however, as usual, two sides 



to the matter. Changes in the Check-List, 

 we have seen, are chiefly of two kinds, ad- 

 ditions and emendations. The former are 

 composed of ' new ' forms including actually 

 new discoveries and what may be termed 

 deferred discoveries, when for example, in 

 the light of further material, the supposed 

 distinctness of certain forms becomes a 

 demonstrable fact. For the past twenty 

 years, it is true, as fuel for the species' 

 maker fire has become less and less abundant, 

 he has split what was left finer and finer 

 until we seem to have now reached the limit 

 in this direction, and there is hope that in 

 time the fire may burn itself out from very 

 lack of material to feed on. 



But will we ever cease making those 

 revisions in names which, to the amateur, 

 seem so wholly unnecessary ? The answer 

 to this question depends on the absolute 

 fixity with which the A. O. U. adheres to 

 its original ' Code of Nomenclature ' and 

 the consistency with which it is interpre- 

 tated. This code is based on two funda- 

 mental principles, priority and preoccupa- 

 tion. That is, beginning with Linnaeus at 

 1758, the first specific name properly given 

 to an animal is the one by which it shall be 

 known, provided this name, combined with 

 a similar generic term, is not preoccupied, 

 in other words has not been used before in 

 zoology. 



No one can doubt the justness of these 

 rules, but so vast and so scattered is the 

 ornithological literature of the past one 

 hundred and fifty years that often what was 

 long thought to be the first name applied to 

 a species is found to be antedated by a 

 previously given name, while current names 

 are frequently found to be invalid because 

 they have been used before for some other 

 animal. 



It happens that at present we are passing 

 through a period when much attention is 

 being paid to this subject of names with 

 correspondingly numerous ' discoveries ' of 

 long-standing errors in the nomenclature of 

 our birds. But, eventually, provided the rules 

 laid down are rigidly adhered to, we shall 

 doubtless reach the stability we have so long 

 sought and in the meantime we may welcome 

 each change as a step toward this end. 



