358 The 



eagerly looked for by zoologists at large, but it did not make its 

 appearance until towards the close of December, 1895. It comes 

 to us in the same form as its predecessor, but it does not appear 

 to be as substantially bound or printed upon as good paper. 

 Apart from the substitution of one member of the committee 

 for another, it is likewise gotten out under precisely similar 

 auspices, plans, objects and general arrangement. From it, 

 however, has been omitted the " Code of Nomenclature," but in 

 it are included all the new existing and fossil birds known to 

 the committee, and which were not in the first edition of the 

 Check-List. For this and minor changes it has but 372 pages 

 against 392 of the original volume. In its preface it contains 

 " extracts from the Introduction to the Code of Nomenclature," 

 intended to serve " to explain the scope and plan of the Check- 

 List, including the method of incorporating additions." 



The second edition, then, of this work may be taken as set- 

 ting forth the progress in North American ornithology as un- 

 derstood by a committee appointed by the American Ornith- 

 ologists' Union, and for a period extending between the years 

 1886 and 1895 inclusive. In considering this from such a 

 standpoint, let us first take into account the number of species 

 and subspecies added to, or subtracted from, the List of 1886, 

 in connection with other changes, and the same for the " hy- 

 pothetical list " and for the « fossil birds." After this I will con- 

 sider what improvements, if any, have been made in the mat- 

 ter of classification. 



Designating the two volumes simply by the years of their 

 publication, as 1886 and 1895 respectively, we find that in the 

 first group of birds presented, or the Order Pygopodes, there 

 were included, in 1886, 33 species and 4 subspecies, while in 

 I860 but 32 species are given and 4 subspecies, the change being 

 due to the omission of Synthliboramphus wumizusume (Tem- 

 mmck's Murrelet, No. 22). 



In 1886, the Great Auk (Plautus impmnis, No. 33) was " Be- 

 lieved to be now extinct," while in 1895 it is confidently as- 

 serted to be "Now extinct." This being the case, we would 

 like to inquire what place has it in a list of the existing birds 

 of this or any other country ? It is simply absurd to include 



birds that have i 



) existence in nature in a list of living forms. 



