First Reviser actions in ornithology: an editorial note

Abstract

In the introduction of their most useful work on First-Reviser (FR) actions in ornithology, David et al. (2009) wrote: “It has been suggested that we should have drawn upon nomenclators. We have not done this. We did examine Neave (1939–1940) and noted that he made clear that in such cases his ‘signals’ were used to identify the first spelling, thus although he gives other spellings we do not consider he was deliberately selecting a spelling in the sense the Code expects.” This decision is a disputable one. According to the Code, any published choice for a scientific name or nomen (Dubois 2000) of a correct original spelling or eunym (Dubois 2000) among multiple original spellings qualifies as an FR action, whatever the “kind” of publication involved. Two kinds of sources were deliberately not examined by David et al. (2009) for their review, and should be so by subsequent authors: (1) the Zoological Record (ZR), published yearly since 1864, and which, especially in its early years, provided comments, nomenclatural acts, synonymisations and even new nomina and new morphonyms for existing nomina (Dubois 2000; e.g., justified and unjustified emendations or incorrect subsequent spellings); (2) the various Nomenclatores Zoologici published in the 19th and 20th century, such as Agassiz (1846 and previous editions), Apstein (1915), Sherborn (1932) and Neave (1939a-b, 1940a-b). All these works fully qualify as scientific publications, and they should be quoted whenever relevant. At least some of these sources include clear or questionable FR actions between multiple original spellings.