112 NOVITATES ZOOLOGICAE XXIII. 1916. 



ERRORS IN QUOTATIONS. 



By ERNST HARTERT, Ph.D. 



IT is the habit of ornithological writers to adorn their articles with lists of 

 synonyms and quotations. If these quotations are looked np in the original 

 works, and the descriptions read, considered and verified, then, of course, this 

 is very useful ; but if they are copied from other works this should be stated. 

 This being neglected, they serve no other purpose than to make an article appear 

 more scientific and learned, and thus to throw sand into the eyes of the readers. 

 The work from which most quotations are copied without verification is the 

 Catalogue of Birds, while African students seem to copy from Reichenow's Vögel 

 Afrikas. Neither of these works is, of course, free from errors, and thus mistakes 

 are continually perpetrated and will Dever cease. 



Sharpe's volumes of the Cat. B. are perhaps better compiled, and contain less 

 numerous wrong quotations than most of the other volumes ; but in vol. xxiv. they 

 are, curious to say, very frequeut indeed. 



Merely to show the danger of copying these quotations without verification, 

 I will mention some I came across incidentally when compiling the synonymies for 

 the forthcoming part of my Vög. d. pal. Fauna. I hope it will be a warning to 

 some ornithologists, though many will not read these notes, and will continue 

 to copy the wrong quotations. That is the drawback of great fundamental works 

 like the Catalogue of Birds, that they are accepted like a gospel, without criticism. 



1. " Charadrius aegyptius L." — Every student of African ornithology knows 

 that this is the name given by Linne to the " Crocodile bird," now called Pluvianus 

 aegyptius. Thus it has been correctly quoted by Sharpe in Cat. B. Brit. Mus. 

 xxiv. p. 32. By an inexplicable mistake, however, it occurs again, t.c. p. 257, with 

 the same quotation, as a synonym of " Aegialitis kiaticula," the Ringed Plover, 

 though Linne's diagnosis and quotations clearly show that it refers only to the 

 Pluvianus. This double quotation of the same name has also passed into 

 Reichenow's Vög. Afrikas, where we find it on pages 150 and 174. 



2. Under Aegialitis alexandrina is quoted, p. 277, as a synonym, " Charadrius 

 cantianus minor" but Seebohm called it C. c. minutus; the latter is a distinct sub- 

 species, now called C. alexandrinus seebohmi Hart. & Jacks, (cf. Ibis, 1915, p. 529). 



3. U nder Himantopus himantopus we find, p. 311, the quotation: Himantopus 

 rufipes Bechst., Naturg. Beutschi. iii. p. 466 (1809), and the same is repeated in 

 Reichenow's Vög. Afr. i. p. 207. This quotation, however, is incorrect. The page 

 is 446 in any case, and the correct quotation is Gemeinn. Naturg. Deutschl. iv. 

 p. 446. Some copies of this volume, it is true, have a second title-page which 

 reads : Gemeinnützige Naturgeschichte der Vög. Deutschl. . . . Dritter und letzter 

 Band. Therefore one can, instead of Gemeinn. Naturg. Deutschl. iv. also quote 

 Gemeinn. Naturg. Vög. Deutschl. iii., but never Gem. Nat. Deutschl. iii. This error 

 occurs in many instances in the Cat. B. Brit. Mus., but not constantly, both titles 

 being quoted in vol. xxiv., also copied by Reichenow. 



4. The curious sickle-billed bird from Central Asia is, in the Cat. B. Brit. Mus., 

 and all modern works which I have consulted, called Ibidorliynchus, and it is quoted 

 thus as named by Vigors, who, however, called it Ibidorkyncha. If authors consider 

 themselves justified in altering the gender, they should in any case quote correctly. 



