On the generic name Passerina Vieillot

• Main Author: Oort, E.D. van
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: 1910
• Subjects: Snow Bunting
• Online Access: http://www.repository.naturalis.nl/record/508870; http://www.repository.naturalis.nl/document/551737

One of these days I accidentally met with a description of a plant from the Pyrenees by Mr. Ramond under the name of Passerina nivalis this paper has been published in „Bulletin des sciences par la Société philomatique, n° 41, Paris, Thermidor an 8 de la République (1792)”. Of course the Snow-bunting involuntary came in my mind when reading that name, for I have mentioned, in 1908, this bird under that name in my list of the birds of the Netherlands; I then followed, in naming this species, Mr. R. Ridgway (Auk XV, 1898, p. 324), without inquiring into the matter, as at that time Vieillot’s „Analyse d’une nouvelle Ornithologie élémentaire, Paris 1816”, could not be consulted by me. A copy of Vieillot’s book being now in my possession, I see that, when Vieillot’s name of Passerina could be used in Ornithology, it should be the generic name of the Painted Finches of North America (type the „Ministre” = Tanagra cyanea L.). But the generic name Passerina may not be used in Zoology, as already Linnaeus has first occupied it in Botany. The generic name of the Snow-bunting is Plectrophemx Stejneger (Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. V, 1882, pp. 32, 33), Plectrophanes of B. Meyer 1815 being a synonym of Calcarius Bechstein 1803, as pointed out by Dr. Stejneger. The Painted Finches must be placed in the genus Cyanospiza Baird 1858. Leyden Museum, January 1910.