























104 On the Assignation of a Type to Linnean Genera. 
the genera defined in it can stand of their own right from that 
date, under the exact words of the rule.’ That this edition 
exists, I believe there is no doubt, though I have never set 
eyes on a copy. Had I done so, and found it to agree in 
this respect with the edition of 1760, I should be sure that 
the preceding paragraph was unnecessary ; but lacking the 
opportunity of knowing whether this is the case or not, 
I am unable to substantiate what would be absolutely 
conclusive. } 
And now to meet such of Mr. Sharpe’s objections as I have 
not already, I trust, disposed of. It is clear that considerable 
doubt must exist as to Linnzeus’s Strix aluco; and therefore 
one cannot declare that his “‘ No. 9 is identical with No. 7.” 
It is impossible that Brisson’s arrangement “influenced Lin- 
nzeus in his classification ;”’ for Linneus had already divided 
the Owls into “ Auriculate”’ and “ Inauriculate ” in the 10th 
edition of his ‘Systema,’ written three years before* Brisson’s 
work appeared ; but it is probable that both authors followed 
the earlier systematists, Willughby and Ray, in this obvious 
division. It is hardly consistent with fact to say of the genus 
Striz that “no type had previously been assigned” until 
Savigny designated S. flammea as such; for, even if Linnzus’s 
type be disallowed, we have that of Brisson plainly determined, 
and consequently Savigny was not “ perfectly justified” in 
doing as he did, while, on the other hand, Fleming, in sepa- 
rating S, flammea as the type of his new genus Aluco, and 
restoring S. stridula to the genus Striv, was acting strictly 
within rule. Of the praise which Mr. Sharpe awards to Sa- 
vigny, I have only to say that perhaps, had the latter’s am- 
bitious work been completed, we might possibly have hailed 
him as a reformer of nomenclature superior to Linnzeus ; but 
perhaps it is as well that the ‘ Oiseaux de Egypte et de la 
Syrie’ remains a fragment; for no one can go over the long 
list of references to ancient authors, on which most of his 
decisions are based, without seeing that a large number of 
them are, and must be, hypothetical in the highest degree. 
* This edition was published in 1758; but the preface is dated 24th 
May, 1757, 

