July, 1921 GENERA AND SPECIES 129 
these workers. However, the continual shifting of names and the dividing of 
satisfactory groups are sure to excite strong protests. No one wishes to return 
to the Linnaean conception of genera, but the tendency toward the other 
extreme seems less attractive. Names are for the use of peopie who talk or 
write about things, and names whose meanings are frequently changed are un- 
fitted for any purpose. 
Old generic names become endeared by long familiarity, but some of 
them must be sacrificed to the iron law of priority. We concede present con- 
venience for promised fixity, but are we getting it? Certainly the busy genus 
maker is not helping us. Anthus, Buteo, Chaetura, Diomedea, Empidonaz, 
Fringilla, and other old generic names are associated with certain birds, and 
I hope these names will be with us for a long time. When such names are 
displaced, shifted to other genera, or otherwise modified in significance, it is 
difficult to accept the changes in a kindly spirit. When the changes result 
from giving generic rank to weak subgenera, one is inclined to doubt the 
value of other work of the author who proposes such changes. 
The names of the birds of Europe and of North America have been worked 
over so carefully that they should be fairly well settled. If they are not, what 
hope is there for the nomenclature of the birds of Asia, Africa and South Am- 
erica? ; 
Manila, P. I., February 26, 1921. 
A SYNOPSIS OF CALIFORNIA’S FOSSIL BIRDS | 
By LOYE MJLLER 
URING the several years that have elapsed since a previous synopsis of the 
Pacific coast fossil birds appeared in the Condor (Miller,1911), our knowl- 
edge of the ancient faunas has made considerable advancement. The 
present writer has been especially occupied with an extended paper on the 
avifauna of Rancho La Brea. It seems improbable however that this memoir 
will be off the press for some time to come; hence it is thought advisable to 
announce to those interested in the subject, some of the results of recent activ- 
ity in the California field. 
Since the latest general paper on the subject was published by the writer 
(Miller, 1912) a new bird-bearing horizon, the Upper San Pedro Pleistocene 
has been explored (Miller, 1914). These beds yielded sixteen species of birds 
none of which are extinct. Bird remains from the Pliocene of Santa Monica 
and of San Diego have been collected by Dr. F. C. Clark of Los Angeles. These 
represent some species of auklet and a goose not distinguishable from Brantu 
canadensis. Mr. EK. J. Porteous of Lompoc, keeping the interests of science 
at heart, has rescued from the commercial quarries in the Miocene diatom 
beds of that region some most interesting bird remains. These specimens were 
generously turned over to the writer by Dr. David Starr Jordan. They are 
found to represent a new species of shearwater, two species of gannet, and 
one as yet indeterminate species of shore bird. This material includes the 
major portion of the skeleton of each of some ten or more individuals, a fact 
that is readily seen to hold considerable interest when one considers that a 
