INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 203 
those of M. Vieillot, — for the latter were certainly pub- 
lished first: but our innovations will not cease here ; M. 
Cuvier’s must give way to Brisson’s, and many of these 
must be rejected for those of Willoughby and Ray. 
Let us see, therefore, how this absolute rule would 
work in the family of Psittacide, —a group which has 
of late been overloaded with a host of new names. 
Vieillot’s Plictolophus must give place to Brisson’s Ca- 
eatua, — still retained, indeed, by many of the French 
writers ; Ara must be substituted for Macrocercus ; 
Psitiacus, for Marcgrave’s name of Maracara ; Tuiete, 
of Marcgrave and Ray, has the priority of Agapornis ; 
and Jendaya, of the same authors, must be used instead 
of Conurus. In this manner, if we wish to act strictly 
up to our rule of unconditional priority, — and without 
so doing it would not be a primary rule, — we must re- 
ject four fifths of all the modern names, in order to do 
justice to the priority of others. We see no difference, 
in fact, between these old designations, and many others 
recently published ; for Cacatua, Ara, and Maracara 
seem to be just as expressive as Nymphicus, Nestor, 
Electus, and many others of the same description. We 
should have thought, indeed, that the example set by the 
illustrious Illiger, no less than the excellent remarks upon 
nomenclature by Mr. Vigors*, would have induced our 
own ornithologists at least, not merely to have rejected such 
Tames, but to have excluded them altogether from their 
‘systematic writings, however useful they may be thought 
in the vernacular nomenclature of the Continent. Some 
allowance, again, ought surely to be made in favour of 
‘those ornithologists who patiently work out the details 
of their group, before they venture to publish a new 
‘genus, instead of merely taking what they think to be 
a new form, and at once publishing it as such; the 
chances being equal that it is only an aberrant species. Sir 
James Smith says, and we think very truly, that a botanist. 
(mo less than a naturalist) who undertakes to reform 
and elucidate a whole tribe, ought to be unshackled in 
* Zool. Journ. iii. 117., especially iv. 220. note. | 
