516 Recently published Ornithological Works. 
not less than 389 species and subspecies are recognised as 
coming within the limits of " North and Middle America," 
though, we must say, we think that Mr. Ridgway need not 
have overburdened his list by including the Galapagos 
within the area treated of, the Galapagan Avifauna being, in 
our opinion^ quite as nearly related to South as to North 
and Middle America. 
Again, though it cannot be denied that subspecies exist 
in Nature, and that in some respects the use of them is of 
advantage, we cannot approve of the enormous increase of 
trinomials that has lately taken place among the new school 
of systematists. Seven species of Carpodacus mexicanus, 
for example, are allowed by Mr. Ridgway, and twelve of 
Cardinalis cardinalis. We fully admit the great experience 
that Mr. Ridgway has gained from the enormous series of 
specimens before him, but we cannot believe that it would 
be possible to recognise many of these supposed subspecies 
without a knowledge of the locality of the specimens. We 
quite agree with our author when he confesses that 
trinomials are a ^'^ necessary evil," and that binomials are 
preferable. We shrink from contemplating what the 
number of "^ subspecies " will come to be when the birds of 
other countries shall have been worked up to the same pitch 
as those of North and Middle America, and we lament the 
task that will fall on the ornithologists of the future in 
striving to recollect their names. 
In matters of nomenclature Mr. Ridgway adheres closely 
to the Code of the A.O.U., of which he is such a distinguished 
member. One of the most objectionable of these rules is 
that the original mispelling of a name cannot be corrected. 
Thus Swainson having, from ignorance or from error, called 
a genus of Pigeons Leptotila instead of Leptoptila, tlie first 
spelling must, according to this practice, be always retained — 
obviously wrong as it is. As we have said before, the rules 
of grammar and common sense are, to our mind, of far 
greater importance than the artificial rules of priority, as 
they are carried out by the new school. So far from 
conducing to uniformity of nomenclature, such proceedings 
