VI 
PREFACE. 
of Birds,” twenty years ago. My conclusions have been followed 
by naturalists in many countries, and, I hope, will continue to 
be so. I would further remark that Dr. Stejneger’s “ incon- 
venient discoveries ” have not had a “great attraction ” for me, 
as my kindly critic suggests. I really hate all these changes of 
names, and I have always had a great sympathy with the pro- 
posal of Mr. Seebohm to adopt only the best-known name for 
a species, but the “auctorum plurimorum” system of nomen- 
clature, though very good in theory, would not work well in 
practice, for a name in a majority one year, might turn out to 
be in a minority two years hence, and so there wonld again be 
no stability in our nomenclature. 
It is certainly unfortunate that so many older names for 
common species have been unearthed during recent years, 
but that is surely not the fault of the authors themselves, 
but of their descendants, who have not taken the trouble to 
search the whole of the literature. I have used in the present 
“ Handbook ” such names as I believe to be not only the right 
ones, but those which in future are most likely to be adopted 
by ornithologists generally; and I cannot agree with Dr. Sclatcr 
that, because this little “Handbook” is “confessedly in- 
tended for popular use, it would have been wiser to adhere 
to ordinary nomenclature and to avoid an unnecessary multi- 
plicity of genera.” This is exactly what I think ought mi to 
be done for in a book which has such a wide sale as the 
“ Naturalist’s Library,” it is more important to teach the 
reader the nomenclature most likely to be in vogue in the 
future, than to serve up to him names which a very little study 
on his part will'enable him to discover to be out of date. 
Mr. Harting has also written a friendly notice of my first 
volume in the “Zoologist” for 1894 (pp. 468-472), but he 
also complains that there is so much that is “ new ” in the 
book. It really looks as if he had allowed much recent work 
