Mar., 1907 55 



THE NEW CHECK-LIST 



BY p. A. TAVKRNER 



WE ARE all more or less interested in the forthcoming check-list, now under 

 preparation; and most of us have ideas as to what we should like to see 

 therein. That everybody should be satisfied with the results, whatever 

 they may be, is beyond hope. No matter what action is taken there are sure to be 

 some disappointed ones. 



Some of the reforms that I, personally, should like to see come to pass, seem 

 beyond the grounds of possibility. Such is, for instance, the suppression of the Law 

 of Priority as interpreted in Canons XH-XIV of the Code. The only apparent way 

 to make our nomenclature stable is for the Committee to take high-handed measures 

 and say that so-and-so shall be the names of the species, for all time to come, as 

 long as the present system flourishes, grammar, philology, or priority to the con- 

 trary notwithstanding. 



This would, I am aware, raise a storm of protest. But the international con- 

 fusions arising therefrom certainly would be no greater than they now are, and 

 perhaps would be less, as conflictions once learned would stay learned and be sub- 

 ject to but half the change that they are now. The case of Stercorarius parasi liens is 

 a fine example of international discord, where the same name applies to two different 

 species according to two current systems of nomenclature. It matters very little 

 what a species is called, so long as the name is permanent and all know the form to 

 which it applies. All our literature refers to Corviis aniericaniis. What good it 

 has done to change it to hracJiyrhyiirhos I fail to see. It has antiquated whole 

 shelves of our literature and, in this special case, has given us a difficult for a simple 

 and thoroly characteristic name. The solution, however, of this question may be, 

 as yet, far in the future, and perhaps belongs to the millennium rather than to 

 the present. 



There are, however, other desirable things that seem more probable of realiza- 

 tion. Some of them are mentioned in the last issue of The: Condor over the initials 

 "J. G." on page 154. 



The suggestion of applying qualifying terms to each and all of the varieties of 

 a subspecifically divided species is most wholesome, and should be applied to the 

 scientific as well as the vernacular nomenclatural system. Modern subspecific ideas 

 should not recognize the superiority of one variety over another without good 

 evolutionary reasons for so doing. Why call one form a species and the rest 

 varieties just because one of them had, of necessity, to be discovered first? To do 

 so, not only fails to represent the true facts of the case, but in many instances 

 actually falsifies them. The trinomial system necessitates the consideration of the 

 term "species" as- a collective noun, of which the varieties or subspecies are the 

 component parts. 



The western robin is just as much the "American robin" as the eastern form 

 and, as such, has just as much right to that name. We should, then, be able to 

 speak of both forms as a whole, as the x\merican robin, Meriila niiiiratoi ia. When 

 we are certain of the subspecific identification (not always ea.sy or possible) or wish 

 to differentiate the two forms, we can then say eastern robin, M. in. niigratoria, 

 or western robin, M. in. propiiiQtia, as the case may be. Without doubt, this fact 

 of the equality of all the varieties of a species, should be shown graphically in the 

 arrangement of the coming list. Heretofore every slight variation that has been 



