Ornithological Notes

Abstract

IN the fifth part (vol. i.) of The Austral Avian Record the editor executes a complete volte face in the matter of the classification of Australian birds. Hitherto he has used generic terms in a wide and comprehensive sense; he now employs them in a much more restricted signification, and accordingly proposes no fewer than forty-eight new genera in this issue. Whether such changes be expedient or not (there is no right or wrong in the matter), they have the great disadvantage of rendering standard works, like Sharpe's “Hand-list of Birds,” more or less obsolete.