PELECANIFORMES. 
The preceding remarks were induced through the study of this Order. 
Ogilvie-Grant, in 1898, scarcely modified the Brissonian genera of 1760, and 
because this expression of reaction was published in the Catalogue of the 
Birds of the British Museum it has been widely accepted. In the preceding 
Order I pointed out that the work in the Catalogue of the Birds of the British 
Museum had been performed by Count Salvadori, a careful and accurate 
worker and a genus-splitter, and that his genera had been generally maintained 
without criticism ; in the present Order the compiler was a genus-lumper, 
and the genera, though obviously polyphyletic, have been as uncritically 
utilised. 
Many good workers had previously effected subdivision of the Brissonian 
genera, but these Ogilvie-Grant quite ignored : in my opinion subdivision 
is necessary and the genera utilised by Ogilvie-Grant do not portray the 
facts. 
As instance, the genus Sula has the range “ Temperate and Tropical 
seas.” This does not indicate that some forms, which to me constitute a 
genus, are confined to Temperate seas and are never found in the Tropics, 
and that others are confined to the Tropics and never live in the Temperate 
regions. These groups differ in many important characters which are constant 
in widely separated areas. I will deal with these later, but simply note the 
above in passing. 
If the differences here observed are not of generic value what must the 
confusion become when the Passeriformes are examined with a similar 
standard ? For some inexplicable reason a combination of different colours 
becomes sufficient when a Passerine bird is examined ; e.g. Ogilvie-Grant 
himself recently proposed a new genus Pseudacanthis, the main generic 
feature being that it looked something like a Linnet but not quite ; it didn’t 
have a red head. Without prejudice it would look more like a Linnet than 
some Gannets resemble each other. But really the reverse is the truth : a 
small difference in an ancient form like a Gannet would mean much g:i^eater 
difference from an evolutionary view-point than a huge difference in a recent 
product like a small Passerine bird. I can only conclude that the generic 
and subgeneric differentiation of birds is as important, or more so, as the 
subspecific differentiation so freely indulged in. It must be more useful 
from a geographical point of view (which subspecies-makers so highly extol), 
to remark that a country has evolved, or is inhabited by, a different type of 
bird than that it has only produced a slightly differently coloured form. The 
latter are so very easily modified by climate that in Australia, where hundreds 
of different fairly permanent climatic conditions exist, hundreds of subspecies 
are co-existent. Lack of study of such by extra-limital workers acquainted 
VOL. IV. 
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