I propose to sketch the history of the advance of the systematic study of Australian Ornithology; then give a few notes on the nomenclature utilized, and a brief review of the Australian Commonwealth as a suitable environment for the differentiation of subspecies.
The Checklist Committee have decided to base their Checklist upon "the classification of John Gould as corrected and modernized by the subsequent classification contained in the British Museum Catalogue of Birds. The adoption of this latter classification was rendered necessary as Gould's generalization of the higher groups was not sustainable in view of the knowledge resultant from later morphological work and the discovery of new facts."
I have italicized the last phrase, as therein lies the keynote to the whole of the work recently done, and which has been ignored or overlooked by the Checklist Committee. As a matter of fact, the Committee have not faithfully carried out their own programme. I shall therefore deal with that matter under my notes regarding nomenclature.
I. Systematic Workers.
No endemic Land Bird from Australia was known to Linné when he published his Systema Naturae, in 1758 and 1766.
When Gmelin, however, published his edition of Linne's Systema Naturae, in 1788-1789, a few Australian birds were given Latin names, the birds themselves having been described under English vernaculars by Latham in his General Synopsis of Birds. The specimens Latham examined were brought home by the naturalists attached to Captain Cook's ships on his famous voyages. It is noteworthy that probably some of these descriptions were prepared from paintings, as not much was known at that time regarding the preservation of bird-skins or specimens. Recently some objection has been made by Australians to the acceptance of such names, but it may be noted that a good painting might be preferable to a badly-prepared bird-skin. However, so few birds are contained in Gmelin's work, that not much stress can be laid upon the direct bearing of this systematist upon Australian Ornithology. Immediately afterwards White, Phillip, and Hunter each published books dealing with the first colonization of New South Wales, and each of them had something to say about the strange forms of bird-life observed in the new country.
