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Aus den Verhandlungeii der 22. Jahresversammlung der Deutschen Ornithologisclien Grescllschaft 



6. Wiglesworth (Dresden): 



On 



Formulae for indicating the 



Variation of a Species witliin itself 



TriuoniialSj used as at pvesentj encounter the two following objections among numerous other ones : 



1, They are planted here, tliere^ and everywhere within a species , just as an 

 author finds, or thinks he finds, a racial difference. 



These names make a show of positive knowledge where in reality vagueness often, if not always, 

 exists. They encourage the idea that species tend to evolve into well marked races per saltum (as may, 

 or may not, have sometimes been the case), and that the interconnecting links arc few and produced by 

 interbreeding. They attract at present an undue amonnt of attention to the disadvantage of the study of 

 individual, sexual, and seasonal variation and of changes due to age. They are a burden to the memory 

 and especially to the literary worker, who has to say when one of these trinomials becomes the synonym 

 of one of the others. They promote a dogmatic comprehension of Nature, which for many cases seems to 



be correct, for others wrong. It is as if a species were always compared with tlie same symbol — say, 

 a cluster, in which the grapes represent the subspecies, the stalk the interconnecting individuals, bnt there 



are times when a mountain-mass would afford a better comparison 



the general mass representing the 



main body of individuals, with here and tliere a pronounced peak, where a local race may be said to 

 „come to a head". Perhaps it is not always sufficiently borne in mind that no two iiulividuals are 

 exactly alike, though all animals are built np to a certain point in a corresponding way. But wliile the 

 innummerable characters shared in common vary in each individual of a group, a segregation of individuals 

 into smaller groups tends under favourable conditions to take place; these growing sub-groups may in 

 process of time become moi-e and more dissimilar, imtil one group comes to possess a character (or 

 characters) never so found in any other group, when it is termed a „species". But no modern author 

 of subspecies has ever yet been able to discover a gauge or criterion for deternnning when such a buddijig 

 species is sufficiently ripe to be labelled with trinomials, nor how, hideed, nor wluu'o, the „buds" are to 



be distinguished from tlir 



ii 



stem^'. 



, ■ r 



2. Trinomials are intended for the pronounced races of a species; the complex of 

 intermediate forms is left out of account, although the latter sometimes composes the bulk 

 of the species. 



For certain critical cases in the Ms. „Birds of Ceh)bes" Meyer and "Wiglesworth have adopted 

 the following methods in order to secure the abolition of useless trinomials and to indicate the intermediate 

 individuals: only extreme racial differentiations are indicated by trinomials, while the means, or inter- 

 connecting links, are indicated by a long connecting link, or hyphen, between the names of the extremes. 

 To give a practical illustration, the Brahminy Kite, Haliadur Indus (Bodd.) has in India rather broad, 

 dark shaft-streaks on the wliite plumage of the head, neck, and breast, but these streaks grow narrower 

 and tend to vanish more and more the further it is found east in the East Indian Archipelago, until in 

 New Guinea these in parts are pure wdiite. The Indian and the New Guinean birds are the extremes, 

 these are the typical H. indu,9^ or IL indus tyiiicus, and H. indus glrrenera, respectively. The intermediate 



r 



forms are 



II. indas 



giTvenera, 



- T 



The names H. intennedius Gurney, and //. indus var. amhiguus Briigg., 

 intermediate forms, are synonyms of this formula. 



liaving been 



conferred on 





1) Hr. Wiglcsworth liatte dcm Herausgcber das Polgende znr Vorlage bei der Discussion iiber Nomenclatnr 

 gegeben, es konnte jedoch wcgen ^oitmangel nicM gclesen wcrden. Eino Fortsotzuug dor Xonionclatur- und Subspecies- 

 Dcbatto fand in der 4. Sitzung statt, allcin diesbeziiglicli verweiso icli auf den Bericht im J. f. 0. 1897. 517—519 mit Be- 

 merkungen von Klcinschmidt nnd mir. M. 



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