92 



Tlie lush Naturalist, 



REVIEWS. 



THE NEW B.O.U. LIST. 



A List of British Birds. Compiled by a Committee of the British 

 Ornithologists' Union. Second and Revised Edition, London : 

 W. Wesley & Sons, 191 5. Pp. xxii +430. Price 7s. dd. 



Thirty -two years have elapsed since the publication of the first edition 

 of the B. O. U. List of British Birds, and so many important ornitholo- 

 gical works have been published in that interval by writers who were not 

 inclined to subordinate their own views on correct nomenclature to what 

 they regarded as antiquated usage that something extremely like anarchy 

 has lately come to prevail on the subject for want of a recognized standard. 

 The new List may fairly claim to be the work of the most authoritati\T 

 Committee that could have been obtained, and it appears to have faith- 

 fully carried out its task in accordance with the important series of resolu- 

 tions (five in number) which it passed at its first meeting on the 8th 

 November, 191 1. By these the tenth edition of Linne's " Systcma 

 Naturae " was accepted as the basis of priority, with certain reservations 

 intended to guard against the extreme confusion that must result from 

 either the alteration or the transference of a name that has been in use 

 for many years. Trinomial names were to be accepted for " races recog- 

 nized by the Committee as occurring in the British Isles" — though this 

 was afterwards interpreted as meaning for races distinct from the typical 

 form, which was not to be trinomially designated — and names whose 

 retention was decided on as advisable in spite of their not having the 

 sanction of the strict law of priority were to be specialh' indicated as 

 " nomina conservanda." It is unnecessary to say that these reservations 

 mark a large departure in the new List from the principle followed by 

 the " Hand -List of British Birds" published in 1912, under the joint 

 authorship of Messrs. E. Hartert, E. C. R. Jourdain, N. F. Ticehurst, and 

 H. F. Witherby. 



It cannot be denied that the " compromise " plan here followed between 

 usage and the strict rule of priority will in some ways rather tend to in- 

 crease the existing confusion. If, for example, we take the name Turdus 

 inusicus, without adding a trinomial, we find ourselves capable of being 

 understood in three different ways. Under the old B. O. U. list Turdus 

 inusicus was the Song-Thrush. The Hand-List of 1912 following the 

 strict priority rule, transferred it to the Redwing. In the new B. O. U. 

 list that change is disallowed as too confusing, and Turdus musicus again 

 becomes the specific name of the Song -Thrush, but we are discouraged 

 from using the binomial name for the aggregate species, and are warned 

 that it ought to be understood as meaning only the Continental form, 

 while the British Song -Thrush (the Turd its philomelus clarkei of Hartert" s 

 Hand-List) is the T. musicus clarkii of the B. O. U. List of 1915. So the 

 same systematic name may be variously used cither for the Song -Thrush 



