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of the quills. (8) That all structural characters must have had their origin 
in some “cause” (despite what may be argued to the contrary when the 
“cause” is not immediately apparent) and the greater the number of 
hypotheses advanced to explain such developments, upon the bases of 
correlated observations, the better for science. Latterly there has been 
much discouragement to anyone bringing forward such hypotheses, owing 
to the spirit of antagonism which seems to be so deeply rooted in the nature 
of man; but such antagonism can have its origin only in the narrowness 
of mind of those who are incapable of absorbing anything new, and should 
be ignored if it adds nothing fresh to build upon. (9) That cataloguing of 
names is the elementary need of science but not its final objective, so that 
the cataloguing of names should be adjusted to the progress of science, not 
be permitted to govern it. (10) That although we may be able to point 
to certain characters as being correlated with certain habits, it would be 
impossible to come to such conclusions without a foreknowledge of the 
habits of the species, and we must consequently start and conduct our 
research by acquiring an intimate knowledge of the habits of the species, 
first in our neighbourhood and subsequently abroad, as there is nothing 
which narrows the point of view more than basing our conclusions upon 
what is observed in one area alone. Birds are so widely distributed as 
species on account of their power of flight that even the very local species 
have at one time or another in the course of their evolution passed through 
very different conditions of environment ; as compared with mammals, say, 
only the very local species of birds can be viewed in the same light. 
In view of what has been said above, some disappointment may be felt 
at the brevity of some of the diagnoses given hereafter. I may therefore 
state that this is only a preliminary review of the state of the nomenclature 
of our birds as we find it today, the detail being left to a greater work in 
the future. It may perhaps also be argued from the arrangement followed 
that nearly all our species represent genera; but it will be observed that 
in many cases I have not applied subgeneric terms, as I cannot gauge the 
feeling of workers abroad as to what should be considered genera and sub-’ 
genera, and the subgenera I have named in order to emphasise the 
necessity for the most careful investigation. There are other species in most 
of the South African genera; but these have not always been mentioned 
on account of the poverty of the descriptions in literature and specimens 
not being available. 
Having said this much, I shall now proceed to the main subject of this 
paper. 
CHANGES IN THE NOMENCLATURE OF SOUTH AFRICAN BIRDS 
EFFECTED BY VARIOUS AUTHORS AND HERE 
DECIDED UPON 
Phasianidae 
The generic arrangement of the African phasianids as it stands at present 
is far from satisfactory and needs revision. The following genera are readily 
recognised in structure, habits and call-notes, with the exception of 
Pternistis and Chaetopus, which are closely allied, differing mainly in the 
former having a nude patch of skin on the throat. 
