CAMPBELL— Names for Australian Birds. 211 



Living versus Dead Names for Australian Birds. 



(By A. J. Campbell, O.M.B.O.U., Melbourne.) 



Much attention has been paid recently to nomenclature 

 in connection with our birds, perhaps more so than to ornitho- 

 logy itself— which study should be the first consideration. 

 Nomenclature is a means to an end only. Nomenclature as 

 the dictionary states means '"names appropriated to auy 

 ♦science;'' not that the science is appropriated to the names. 



I, too, have been tempted tlo put ornithology aside for a 

 space to look into names and the methods of nonienelaturists, 

 tif haply I may find enlightenment. 



Let me take, at random, an instance illustrative of un- 

 title: — "Living v. Dead Names.'' The fine Tasmanian Brown, 

 or Swamp : Quail has been known by the living and well- 

 supported, name of Synoicus diemenensis, with 'Gould's most 

 excellent life-coloured plate thereof, for the last seventy 

 years — the ordinary life of man. Now Mr. G. M. Mathews 

 in his laborious work of research has resurrected the dead 

 (obscure and obsolete) 'specific name of ypsilophorus— a, prior 

 name may be, but as dead as Julius Ceasar, and the work of 

 reference given, old, foreign and obsolete — "Bosc, Jour. d.Hist. 

 Nat., 1792." 



That is not all, Mr. Mathews in his enthusiasm (which we all 

 admire) has also discovered that some other animal was pre- 

 viously called Synoicum; therefore, on the score of the so-called 

 science of "one-letterism" Synoicus cannot stand, so says that 

 authority, and he proposes the new genus Ypsilophorus, and as 

 there are sub-species of the Swamp-Quail, in trinomial terms 

 the resurrected and glorified name for the Tasmanian Quail 

 would become: — Ypsilophorus ypsilophorus ypsilophorus.* as 

 against the present living and appropriate name: — Synoiciis 

 diem.ener.sis. In the name of reason which term shall stand? 

 Surely the latter. "Let the dead bury their dead," is divine 

 philosophy. Even, as the proverb goes, a "living dog is better 

 than a dead lion.'' 



Ah. but I may be informed that the "Bales of National 

 Nomenclature" must be abided by. (By the way, probably 

 there are not three copies in the whole of the Commonwealth, 

 and it would be interesting, in these terrible davs of war, to 



* The Austral Arian Record, Vol. HI., p. (B. 



