The Audubon Societies
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A lat-monthly Magazine Devoted to the Study and Protection oi Birds
orrtcrae ORGAN or 1!”. Al'Dl'IIIIX SUClleE>
Edited by FRANK M. CHAPMAN Published by THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Vol. IV Published August t, 1902 No. 4
COPYRIGHTED. tea. or r n. -
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Blrd-Lore‘s Motto: A Bil ti in 1/1: Burk ix War/ll Two in [he Hand.
THE eleventh supplement to the Check- List of North American Birds published by theAme an Ornithologi ts‘llniim in 1836, appears in die july ‘Auk.‘ lt practically Covers the period irom April, 1901. to April. 1902, and an examination of its contents
reveals. in a measure, the activity prevailing during the past year in the technical side of the study of North American birds.
Thus we find that the committee has en- dorsed some thirty-nine and rejected twenty~ seven proposed changes in names; has accepted as additions to our fauna some twenty-two new sub-species and two new species. and has refused to recognize ten proposed ‘new’ forms. In one year. there— fore, over sixty -additions or changes have been made in the Check~List and with action on over fiftycases postponed. the lay student may well ask whether zoological nomenclature i aiter all, the end and not the means ol mBIOgical science.
On the surface the prospects for stability in the names of our birds are indeed disc cotlraging. oi the original 1336 Check List, the result of several years’ work of :t committee of experts, comparatively little remains in its original form, and each succeeding year shows no decrease in the number of proposed emcndations and addi- tions which the Committee an Revision is called upon to consider. then, if the student to whom a name is in truth a means, condemns in disgust the whole matter of nomenclature technicalities and at the same time the disturbers of the Check-List,
There are. however, as usual, two sides
Small wonder,
135
to the matter. Changes in the Check-List, we have seen, are chiefly of two kinds. adr ditious and emendatiolts. The former are composed of 'neu" torms including actually discoveries and what he termed deferred discoveries, when tor example, in the light oi further material, the supposed disrrncrness of certain forms becomes a demonstrable fact. For the twenty years, it is true, as fuel for the speci s‘ maker fire has become less and less abundant, he has split what was left liner and tiller until we seem to have now reached the limit in this direction, and there is hope that in time the fire may burn itself out from very lack of material to feed on.
new may
past
But will we ever cease making those revisions- in names which, to the amateur, seem so wholly unnecessary? The answer to this question dtpcnds on the absolute fixity with which the A. O. U. adheres to its original ‘Code of Nomenclature‘ and the consistency with which it is interpre- tated. This Code is based on two funda- mental principles, priority and preoccupa- tion. That is, beginning with Linnaeus at l758, the first specific name properly given to an animal is the one by which it shall be known. provided this name. combined with a similar generic term, is not preoccupied, in other words has not been used before in zoology.
No one cart doubt the jtlstness of these rules, but so vast and so scattered is the ornithological literature of the past one hundred and fifty years that often what was lonp thought to he the tirst name applied to a species is found to he antedated by a previously given name. while current name.» are irequently found to be invalid because they have been used before for some other animal.
It happens that at present we are passing through a period when much attention is being paid to this subject of names with correspondingly numerous ‘discoveries‘ oi lung~standing errors in the nomenclature of ourbirds. But. eventually, provided the rules laid dotvn are rigidly adhered to, we shall doubtless reach the stability we have so long sought and in the meantime we may welcome each change as a step toward this end.
