Some Recent Terms and Tendencies in Bird Taxonomy

Abstract

Of recent years it has been increasingly recognized that natural populations are more variable, and organisms more difficult to classify than they once seemed. The present mood is chastened. "No system of nomenclature and no hierarchy of systematic categories is able to represent adequately the complicated set of inter-relationships and divergences found in nature. Not even the most extreme splitting will ever lead to completely homogeneous categories" (Mayr 1942: 102). This dissatisfaction has led to a reconsideration of the criterion of infertility and also to the proposal of new taxonomic categories, which are here briefly reviewed. I am indebted to Dr. W. H. Thorpe, Mr. H. N. Southern and Mr. D. Lack for discussing this review with me.