THE BLNOMIAL SYSTEM 503 



excessive — which appears to be highly favourable to the 

 production of reddish-browns. It is very difficult to 

 determine the precise cause of these variations. At 

 first I was inclined to ascribe it to the direct chemical 

 influence of climate upon the colouring matter of the 

 feathers, but a larger acquaintance with these Siberian 

 forms — which are much more numerous than I supposed, 

 the fact being that it is the rule and not the exception 

 for Siberian forms to differ from European ones — has 

 convinced me that the explanation must be sought in the 

 theory of protective colouring gradually assumed by the 

 survival of the fittest. 



Here again the confirmed habit of the older orni- 

 thologists of either treating these little differences as 

 specific, or of ignoring them altogether, is much to be 

 deplored. I venture to suggest, as a punishment for 

 their delinquencies, that they should be exiled to Siberia 

 for a summer to learn to harmonise their system of 

 nomenclature with the facts of nature. Dr. Dryasdust 

 and Professor Redtape have committed themselves in 

 the pre- Darwinian dark ages of ornithology to a binomial 

 system of nomenclature, which does not easily lend itself 

 to the discrimination of specific forms ; and although the 

 American ornithologists have emancipated themselves 

 from the fetters of an antiquated system, English orni- 

 thological nomenclators still groan under the bonds of 

 this effete binomial system, and vex the souls of field- 

 naturalists with capricious changes of names in their 

 futile efforts to make their nomenclature subservient to a 

 Utopian set of rules called the Stricklandian code — laws 

 which are far more honoured in the breach than in the 

 observance, for they have done great harm to the study 

 of birds. It is devoutly to be wished that the rising 

 generation of ornithologists may have the courage to 



