4o 
Analyses of Books. [January, 
in southern or western Europe. Thus in the marsh tit 
“ English skins are the brownest, and have the black on the head 
extending only to the nape, and are scarcely distinguishable from 
examples of Par us palustris from the South of France, Italy, and 
Asia Minor. Examples from Norway differ in havingthe back grey 
instead of brown. Examples from Archangel are greyer still, 
and have the black on the head extending beyond the nape. 
Both these characteristics are more pronounced in skins from 
the Petchkora, the Obh, and the Lower Yenesay, and still more in 
those from the Upper Yenesay.” 
After giving further instances the author returns to the charge 
at the very conclusion of his book. He writes : — “ The con- 
firmed habit of the older ornithologists, of either treating these 
little differences as specific or of ignoring them altogether, i-s 
much to be deplored. I venture to suggest, as a punishment 
for their delinquencies, that they should be exiled to Siberia for 
a summer to learn to harmonise their system of nomenclature 
with the faCts of Nature. Dr. Dryasdust and Professor 
Redtape have committed themselves in the pre-Darwinian 
dark ages to a binomial system of nomenclature which 
does not easily lend itself to the discrimination of sub- 
specific forms ; and although the American ornithologists have 
emancipated themselves from the fetters of an antiquated sys- 
tem, English ornithological nomenclators still groan under the 
bonds of this effete binomial system, and vex the souls of field 
naturalists with capricious change of names in their futile efforts 
to make their nomenclature subservient to a Utopian set of rules 
called the Stricklandian code — laws which are far more honoured 
in the breach than in the observance, and have done great harm 
to the true study of birds. It is devoutly to be wished that the 
rising generation of ornithologists would have the courage to 
throw the binomial system to the dogs, and trample the Strick- 
landian code under foot, and once for all study Nature and make 
their nomenclature harmonise with the faCts of Nature.” 
These strictures carry the more weight because corresponding 
complaints are made, e.g., by entomologists. May we not ask 
whether the very concept of “species,” as still used, does not 
require serious modification, or, rather, whether the term itself 
should not be superseded as fraught with misleading reminis- 
cences ? In any way we must hold that Evolutionism is useless 
- — worse than useless — if held in theory and ignored in practice. 
If it is an error, the more we try to apply its principles in our 
studies of Nature the sooner we shall become aware of the faCt. 
If, as we believe, it is a great truth, we have no right to let it lie 
idle. It is not pleasant to see that here, in the native country of 
Darwin, the great reform which he inaugurated is less advanced 
than it is abroad. 
Of Mr. Seebohm’s work, as entertaining for the general 
reader and suggestive for the naturalist, we cannot speak too 
highly. 
