178 
Recent Literature. 
pigment procured by Churcli by boiling a solution of Turacin for a long 
time. 
Zoorubin, a red-brown pigment occurring in Cincinnurus regius is next ! 
described. In solubility it much resembles the preceeding, but has no 
absorption band, though all of the spectrum beyond D is absorbed. When 
treated with a very small quantity of copper-sulphate, Zoorubin instantly 
becomes cherry-red, a characteristic reaction. This pigment occurs in 
the brown female paradise bird though not in other brown birds, as Strix 
flainmea and Alcedo isfiida. As regards the colors of Eclectus flolychlorus, 
where green, blue, red, yellow and brown may all be found, the author 
has brought out some very interesting points. The blue and green are 
mechanical, or rather the blue is mechanical and the green is the result 
of a yellow pigment overlying a brown one. The true pigments of the 
feathers are brown, yellow, and red. If the feathers be blackened on 
their under surfaces with lampblack or sepia, they become blue. If the 
yellow feathers are treated in a similar way, they become green. The 
yellow pigment is Zoofulvin, the red probably Zoonerythrin. 
Lastly the author describes the yellow pigment,* Coriosulfurin, found 
in the tarsus of the birds of prey. This substance is unlike any known to 
occur in feathers. It has three absorption bands between F and G. — J. A. J. 
Stejneger’s Nomenclatural Innovations.* — Proposing to use “the 
oldest available name in every case,” the author shows that many of our 
current names must give way if the “ inflexible law of priority” is to be 
observed. For ourselves, we believe that the surest way out of the nomen- 
clatural difficulties that beset us is to be found in some such simple rule 
as this, and that to upset every name that can be upset according to any 
recognized principle is really the shortest road to that fixity of nomencla- i 
ture for which we now all sigh like furnaces. Still such a paper as this 
makes us wish, as so many others have done, that some counteractive 
“statute of limitation” could come into operation, by which a bird resting 
in undisturbed enjoyment of its name for, say, a century or half a century, 
should not be liable to eviction under the common law of priority. Human 
welfare and happiness on the whole is the final cause of all law, and in 
the case of titles to real estate it is we believe statutory that undisturbed 
possession for a certain period shall exempt property-holders from litiga- 
tion on account of any adverse claim, however otherwise sound, which is 
not presented within a certain number of years. This seems to be neces- j 
sary for the security of any title, knd to proceed upon the theory that if ! 
owners don’t take the trouble to make good their title in due time they 
ought to forfeit it. The logic of a bird’s right to its name and a posses- 
sor’s right to any other property is the same in theory, and might properly 
be carried into effect. Fifty years of unchallenged usage might do, and a 
* On some generic and specific appellations of North American Birds. By Leonhard 
Stejneger. Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., June, 1882, pp. 28-43. 
