102 Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature REQUEST FOR A RULING THAT THE TRIVIAL NAMES OF TWO WOODPECKERS, EACH CONSISTING OF A • SLIGHT VARIANT OF A PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED NAME BASED UPON A WORD TRANSLITERATED INTO THE LATIN ALPHABET FROM A LANGUAGE USING ANOTHER ALPHABET, BE TREATED AS JUNIOR HOMONYMS OF THE EARLIER NAMES SO PUBLISHED By the Marquess HACHISUKA {Atami, Shizuoka Ken, Japan) (Commission's reference Z.N.(S.)678) The purpose of the present application is to ask the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature to give a ruling that the trivial names of two wood-peckers, each consisting of a sUght variant of a previously published name based upon a word transliterated into the Latin alphabet from a language using another alphabet, are to be treated as junior homonyms of the earlier names so published. From the point of view of Japanese ornithologists the first of these cases is a matter of some urgency for the decennial revision of the Handlist of the Japanese Birds is now in preparation and it is particularly desired that the correct names for these birds should be used in it. 2. The birds concerned are now regarded as belonging to the genus Picoid^s Lacepede, 1799. The birds involved in the first case were originally described from material from the island of Sakhalin, the second from the Tianschan area. The names in question are the following : — (1) Dry abates leucotos saghalitiensis Yamashina, 1931 {Tori! : 1) becomes congeneric with Picoides tridactylus sakhalinensis ButerHn, 1907 {Orn. Monatsber. 15 : 10) on the imion of Dendrocopos Koch, 1816 with Picoides LacepMe, 1799. (2) Dendrocapus [sic] major tianshanicus Buterlin, 1910 {Orn. Mitt., Mo.skau .1910 (3) : 200) becomes congeneric with Picoides tri-dactylus tianschanicus ButerUn, 1907 {Orn. Monatsber. 15 : 9) on the union of the genus Dendrocopos Koch, 1816, with the genus Picoides Lacepede, 1799. 3. There is no authoritative approved spelling either for the word used to denote the Island of Sakhahn or Saghalien, or for the word used as the name of the Tianschan or Tianshan Mountains. Both these names are based upon place names used in languages using alphabets other than the Latin alphabet and in existing circumstances it is not possible to establish that a Latinised version of these place names spelt in one way is more correct than that spelt in another way. Shght variations in spelling due to differences in transliteration are not open to any serious objection in the case of trivial names, where the species concerned are referred to different genera. The question does however become one of consequence when two species or subspecies in the same genus bear names that are essentially identical with one another, differing, in form, only through shght difference in transliteration. In the present instance, it would clearly be most BuU. zool. Nmiend., Vol. 9 (October 1952)
Request for a ruling that the trivial names of two woodpeckers, each consisting of a slight variant of a previously published name based upon a word transliterated into the Latin alphabet from a language using another alphabet be treated as junior homony
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