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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [Vol. XXXVIII. 



fauna will, when that time comes, be extinct. With nomenclature 

 I have nothing to do. Names are the inventions of men, whereas 

 on the other hand, the relationships existing among birds in nature 

 are actual, and in so far as invention enters here, it can only be 

 in the form of printed, diagrammatic, or other device, to convey 

 to the eye and mind what our conceptions of those relationships 

 are. We may change nameS at any time and invent new ones ad 

 libitum, but not so real relationships. These are fixed, and it 

 remains for us to ascertain what they really are, and express 

 them in the simplest terms. This is a matter of time, and I 

 know of but two ways by means of which a consensus of opinion 

 of ornithologists can be arrived at. First, by our mastering the 

 morphology, geographical distribution, habits and life histories of 

 all existing forms, and the osteology and other remains of all 

 extinct ones within our ken ; second, by the meeting of com- 

 petent ornithologists in congress to discuss anything that touches 

 upon the classification of the Class, and especially of the visible 

 means of representing digested ideas in regard to it. Much 

 could be accomplished by an international congress, like the 

 Second International Ornithological Congress which met at Buda- 

 pest in 1891. 



Of all the papers read at that Congress, none attracted more 

 attention nor has been more useful or more closely studied since, 

 than the paper read by Dr. R. Bowdler Sharpe, entitled "A Review 

 of Recent Attempts to Classify Birds." It is the best thing of the 

 kind extant and is so well known to ornithologists the world over 

 as not to need further comment. I acknowledge with pleasure 

 the assistance it has been to me in preparing the present paper. 

 Apart from the many sound suggestions made by Dr. Sharpe in 

 that address, and the historical lore it places at one's command, 

 the main assistance I have derived from it has been the oppor- 

 tunity it affords me to study and to compare so many of the 

 schemes of classification that have been proposed from time to 

 tm-ie. To be sure, there now exist a number of other avian clas- 

 sifications. I refer especially to the classification of Aves pro- 

 posed by Cope in 1889, entitled "Synopsis of the Families of 

 Vertebrata," T/ie Amcriaw Xaturalist, Vol. XXIII, pp. 849-87/. 

 and also to the taxonomic scheme brought forward by Gadow in 



