14 



The Canadian Field- Naturalist 



[Vol. XXXIV. 



The Old Naturalist wandered on to the mamma- 

 logical section. Here he found the curator con- 

 templating a tray of skins of the genus Microtus, 

 while on the table lay a snigle specimen. After 

 introducing himself, he enquired as to the identity 

 of the specimen on the table. 



"I don't know what it is," said the curator. "In 

 fact, I am afraid it is impossible to say. You see 

 it has lost its label, and without the locality I am 

 entirely unable to say to what subspecies it be- 

 longs." 



"But, if you cannot tell what it is without a 

 locality label, it can hardly be worth bothering 

 about," said the Old Naturalist. 



"Oh, yes, indeed yes. That's not the point at 

 all. If any two mammals come from different local- 

 ities they must belong to different subspecies, whether 

 we can see the differences or not, and we're all 

 right, quite all right, as long as we have the labels." 



"I thought that subspecies were named to facil- 

 itate reference, caused by climatic conditions, and 

 that their chief interest lay in correlating these dif- 

 ferences with the conditions under which they were 

 produced. " 



"That, I know, used to be the old idea, but we 

 have got far beyond that now, and we know that 

 subspecies exist for each locality. It is a great im- 

 provement on the old method and quite simple as 

 long as we have the labels." 



The Old Naturalist left the curator hunting 

 for his lost label, and proceeded to the botanical 

 section. Here he introduced himself to Dr. Synn 

 O'Nymm Seeker, Chief Taxonomist of the Order 

 Rosales. 



"I used at one time," said the Old Naturalist, 

 "to be interested in the genus Crataegus. What is 

 the situation in that genus at the present time?" 



"The genus Crataegus?" exclaimed Dr. Synn 

 O'Nymm Seeker, "why my dear sir, there is no 

 such genus. It was discovered long ago that each 

 of the old species of that so-called genus was really 

 a separate genus, and that each of these separate 

 genera had from fifty to a hundred species. But 

 even this point of view is now obsolete, as Professor 

 Splittem Finer has just found that every individual 

 hawthorn is a distinct species and he is now en- 

 gaged in the momentous task of going over the 

 whole of North America tagging every tree with 

 its own specific name." 



The Old Naturalist turned sadly away. Poor 

 old out-of-date chap! He returned to his home, 

 spent the rest of his life in trying to catch up with 

 a synonomy which got away from him in one group 

 while he was working at another, and in trying in 

 vain to find some rhyme or reason in the mass of 

 published subspecies. So he wore himself out and 

 died and never wrote his book. 



I remember the Old Naturalist well. He was a 

 good worker and a progressive. He would have 

 done even more practical field work if his time 

 had not been so largely taken up in controversy with 

 the conservatives of his day. However, we owe him 

 a larger debt of gratitude than is generally realized. 

 It was largely due to him a code of nomenclature 

 was established which ended the existing practice 

 whereby each individual crank was a law unto him- 

 self, the confusions from which we are only just 

 straightening out to-day. He had a caustic pen 

 too. His papers on Turdus vs. Merula in the old 

 numbers of Ornithologica are classics of sarcasm 

 and irony, and well worth occasional re-reading. 



P. A. T. 



NOTES ON THE NESTING HABITS AND FOOD OF PRAIRIE HORNED- 

 LARKS IN MANITOBA. 



By Norman Criddle, TitEESBANK., Man. 



The notes presented below are largely from ob- 

 servations made during the spring of 1918, and 

 owe their origin to the fact that I was unable, at 

 that time, owing to ill-health, to devote my atten- 

 tion to the more strenuous work which usually falls 

 to the lot of a field officer of the Dominion ento- 

 mological service. As it happened, the horned- 

 larks were nesting close at hand and, therefore, pre- 

 sented opportunity for study without fatigue to the 

 observer. 



The horned-larks of Manitoba have already been 

 dealt with in this journal,* but as the present notes 



Ottawa Naturalist, Vol. XXX, No. 11, Feb. liHT. 



add to what was previously written they seem 

 worthy of record here. 



Prairie horned-larks are the first birds to return 

 to their summer homes from the south; they are 

 usually with us in numbers by March 1 and at the 

 end of that month are, as a rule, busily engaged 

 in incubating a clutch of eggs. My 1918 records 

 read somewhat as follows: April 18, young birds 

 almost able to fly; April 30, young flying; May 

 3, nest with 3 eggs; young from this nest left on 

 May 26. May 16, nest with 4 eggs, young hatched 

 May 26 and left the nest June 4. On June 7, a 

 nest with 4 eggs was discovered and on July 2 one 



