Recent Ornithological Publications. 351 
from the German, and “ brought out by two good friends of c The 
Ibis/” This list, though in some points it does not quite meet 
our approval, we regard as certainly the most complete and the 
most satisfactory of all that have yet appeared, and likely to be 
of great assistance to the students of the European Ornis. The 
species are divided into three categories:— 
No. 
Species breeding in, or regularly visiting, Europe. .. . 420 
Accidental visitors.103 
Varieties commonly considered as species. 55 
578 
And, besides these, those which rest on doubtful authority, so 
far as their occurrence in Europe is concerned, are inserted in 
their proper places, but marked with notes of interrogation. 
This is a very convenient arrangement; and another advantage 
of the present list over its predecessors is, that the names of 
the families extraneous to Europe are inserted in their places, 
so that we get a better idea of the deficiencies of European 
ornithology than is usually presented to us. While according 
this praise, however, we feel bound to mention certain ob¬ 
jections to Prof. Blasius’s system of nomenclature as here 
adopted. These are (1) his use of specific names given by 
authors anterior to Linnseus—such as those of Brisson, Ray, 
and others, who were no binominalists, and have no claim to 
have their appellations employed in a binominal system; (2) his 
refusal to use names originally proposed as specific in a generic 
sense*. This practice renders obligatory the employment of 
many generic terms which are either new or in little use, and 
introduces a fresh element of discord among naturalists. These 
are direct infractions of the code of laws of nomenclature put 
forward by the British Association for the Advancement of 
Science, which we consider the best set of rules ever drawn up 
for the guidance of naturalists on this difficult subject. There 
* Such as Locustella for the Locustella rayi, which is called Parnopia (!) 
locustella; Cisticola for the C. schcenicola, Bp., which is termed Schatnicola 
cisticola; Francolinus for the F. vulgaris, which is called Chcetopus franco- 
linus, &c. 
