HISTORICAL PREFACE. xxvii 



to identify and label his specimens, though he might have no other knowledge of orni- 

 thology than such as the book itself gave him. I have been given to understand that 

 the work has answered its purpose, and has had a useful career ; and I have long since 

 been advised by my esteemed publishers that they were ready to issue a second edition, 

 which I have only just now found time to complete. 



The present edition of the " Key " is conceived in the same spirit as the former one, 

 to fulfil precisely the same purpose. But it has been entirely rewritten, and is quite 

 another work, though the old title is preserved. An author who practises his profession 

 diligently for twenty years is apt to find fault with his first book, and seek to remedy 

 its defects when opportunity offers. It has become quite clear to me, as it doubtless has 

 to others, that the old " Key" no longer turns in the lock with ease and precision, — not 

 that it has rusted from disuse, but that the more compUcated mechanism of the lock re- 

 quires its key to be refitted. During no previous period has our knowledge gone faster 

 or farther or more surely than in the interval between the two editions of the " Key ;" 

 there are scores of active and enthusiastic workers where there was one before ; scores of 

 important treatises have appeared ; the literature of the subject has been searched, sifted, 

 and systematized ; every corner of our country has been ransacked for birds, and the list 

 of our species and subspecies has reached about 900 by the many late discoveries ; active 

 interest in this branch of science is no longer confined to professed ornithologists ; the 

 importance of avian anatomy is as fully recognized as is the beauty of the life-history of 

 birds ; a distinctively American school of ornithology has grown up, introducing radical 

 changes in nomenclature and classification ; a quarterly journal of ornithology has reached 

 its ninth annual volume ; an American Ornithologists' Union, the membership of which 

 extends to every quarter of the globe, hi^s been founded. 



So rapid, indeed, has been the progress, and so radical the changes wrought during the 

 last few years, that I doubt not this is the time to take our bearings anew and proceed 

 with judicious conservatism. Neither do I doubt that just at this moment a new 

 departure is imminent, hinging upon the establishment of the American Ornithologists' 

 Union. It behooves us, therefore, to consider the question, not alone of where we stand 

 to-day, but also, of whither we are tending ; for we are certainly in a transition state, and 

 not even the near future can as yet be accurately forecast. The pliability and elasticity of 

 our trinomial system of nomenclature is very great ; and the method lends itself so readdy to 

 the nicest discriminations of geographical races, — of the finest shades of variation in sub- 

 specific characters with climatic and other local conditions of environment, that our new toy 

 may not impossibly prove a dangerous instrument, if it be not used with judgment and cau- 

 tion. We seem to be in danger of going too far, if not too fast, in this direction. It is not 

 to cry " halt ! " - — for any advance is better than any standstill ; but it is to urge prudence, 

 caution, and circumspection, lest we be forced to recede ingloriously from an untenable 

 position, — that these words are penned, with a serious sense of their necessity. 



In the present unsettled and perplexing state of our nomenclature, when appeal to 

 no " authority " or ultimate jurisdiction is possible, it is weU to formulate and codify 

 some canons of nomenclature by which to agree to abide. It is weU to apply such 

 canons rigidly, with thorough sifting of synonymy, no matter what precedents be disre- 

 garded, what innovations be caused. It is well to use trinomials for subspecific deter- 

 minations. But it is not well to overdo the "variety business;" feather-splitting is 



