232 CAMPBELL— Re-naming Australian Birds. 



Review: "Re-naming Australian Birds Is it 

 Necessary ? " 



By A. J. Campbell, C.M.B.O.U. 

 Delivered at a Conversazione of the Royal Australasian Orni- 

 thologists' Union, Melbourne, July 3rd, 1918 (Walker, May 

 and Co., Melbourne). 



Reached the Hon. Secretary and has been handed to me for 

 comments. 1 know my old friend's very conservative views 

 upon "Nomenclature", and I also know the good work he has 

 done in the past on Australian Ornithology, still Mr. Camp- 

 bell's address cannot be taken seriously, because his aim seems 

 to be, to make an ornithology for Australia to the exclusion of 

 the Old World. If this be the case no scientific ornithologist 

 could work along those lines. In opening, Mr. Campbell 

 says— "Nomenclature is not a science." I do not agree with 

 this, for the naming of birds with scientific names can only be 

 done by scientific ornithologists, therefore it must be science. 

 Then Mr. Campbell goes on with a lot of things which have 

 nothing to do with either ornithology or science ; I refer to such 

 statements as "Official circles of Army, Navy, Civil Service: 

 Let the dead bury their dead, etc., etc.," but one sentence is inte- 

 resting, it is "Again in every walk of life many of us do not re- 

 ceive the reward we fancy we should." This is no reason why we 

 should not give those men before Gould's time the honour 

 which is due to them. Mr. Campbell quotes, "'The excellence 

 and correctness of the major works such as John Gould's "The 

 Catalogue of Birds." As to the first John Gould says in his 

 "Hand Book of the Birds of Australia", "Modern research 

 having ascertained that many of the species believed at the 

 time I wrote to be new, had been previously described by 

 Latham and others, the specific names assigned to them by 

 those authors have, in obedience to the Law of Priority been 

 restored." As for the catalogue, the B.O.U. is now at work 

 upon a list of the Birds of the World, which looks very much 

 as if a new list is badly wanted. As for the market value of 

 these old works, it is their age and excellence of finish which 

 gives them the values quoted by Mr. Campbell. No progres- 

 sive ornithologist works by Gould now, for apart from his real 

 types his work is obsolete, and has not Mr. Campbell said so, 

 for he has written in the preface of his fine work "The Nests 

 and Eggs of Australian Birds". "Since Gould's day orni- 

 thology, like every other science, has advanced «■ pace, eonse- 



