January, 1919] 



The Ottawa Naturalist 



33 



Flight of Horned Owls in Canada by J. 

 Dewy Soper, Preston. Ont. (pp. 478-479). In this 

 the author observes that whilst the above species were 

 unusually abundant in October and November, 

 1917, at various points in southern Ontario, they 

 were abnormally scarce in the country north-east 

 of Lake Superior where they are usually common. 



P. A. T. 



The Geographic Distribution of Color and 

 Other Valuable Characters in the Genus 

 Junco; a new aspect of Specific and Subspecific 

 Values. By Jonathan Dwight, M.D. Bull., Amer. 

 Mus. NaL Hist. Vol. XXXVIII, pp. 269-309, 

 June, 1918. 



Whether one does or does not agree on every 

 point with the author of this paper, it must be re- 

 garded as an important contribution not only to the 

 difficult subject of the genus to which it refers, but 

 to zoology in general and ornithology in particular. 

 In it Dr. Dwight offers a new solution to the con- 

 fusion of differentiated forms of this highly variable 

 group, and attempts to point out a way in which 

 like problems can be simplified in other departments 

 of zoology. 



He cuts the gordian knot of the multitude of in- 

 tergrading subspecies by raising several of them to 

 full specific rank and regarding the intermediates 

 as hybrid. As criteria between specific and 

 subspecific variations he divides them into qualitative 

 and quantitative characters; qualitative charac- 

 ters being new qualities, or characters, and 

 hence specific in value and quantitative being an 

 increase or reduction of quantity in qualities or 

 characters already existing in the parent form and 

 hence of subspecific value only. This is to repjlace 

 the older hypothesis that species are wholly isolated 

 units and that intergradation between extreme varia- 

 tions are proof of this subspecific relationship. It 

 must be acknowledged that this is largely according 

 to the trend of modern thought which is coming to 

 regard the specific unit of systematists with growing 

 distrust and as an unstable division. Whilst this 

 view from a paleontological standpoint is unassail- 

 able the writer cannot but regard it as being mis- 

 placed in considering modern zoological problems. 

 Through geological time species are uncertain if 

 not fluid quantities flowing imperceptibly one into the 

 other, but at any one given moment of time 

 through any given geological horizon I cannot see 

 how we can refuse to recognize their individual 

 isolation from contemporary forms, without making 

 confusion worse confounded and destroying our 

 perspective of current events. The fact that species 

 may be extremely variable within themselves and on 

 the point of giving rise to new ones is not sufficient 

 ground for rejecting the specific concept altogether. 



Whether or no we can frame a satisfactory definition 

 for the species does not alter the specific fact, it 

 merely indicates upon the limitations of our pres- 

 ent knowledge. The fact that hybrids (as usually 

 understood) between acknowledged species are 

 usually rare, but constantly occur without swamp- 

 ing or mongrehzing the species seems evidence that 

 the unit is a real one and not a figment of the 

 imagination. 



Dr. Dwight's distinction between quantitative 

 and qualitative quantities seem subject to the ques- 

 tion, which is which? He regards the black head 

 and the red back of /. oregonus as qualitative, yet the 

 gray head of hiemalis is but a reduced blackness, 

 and the red back of oregonus but the persistence and 

 increase of a color present in juveniles of the op- 

 posite race. It does not seem that these characters 

 offer any better or perhaps as good a means of 

 specific determination as those heretofore applied. 



The characters of Dr. Dwight's hybrids also 

 seem to lack the appearance logically to be ex- 

 pected in such individuals. True hybrids between 

 specifically distinct forms usually show pie-bald 

 mixtures of parental characters seldom even blend- 

 ings of them. Our finest example of this arises from 

 the crossing of the Red and the Yellow-shafted 

 Flickers. These species hybridize most freely and 

 the resultant shows if not in the first generation at 

 least in the succeeding ones, a bewildering array of 

 mixed pure characters in every possible combination, 

 rarely a blending of them. Thus the moustache 

 mark may be black or red or red and black, but 

 rarely if ever, brown, which would be half- 

 way between and a blending of the two. Dr. 

 Dwight's hybrids on the contrary are all perfectly 

 even blendings, one form imperceptibly gliding into 

 the other, with very little reversion to pure parental 

 characters. The very constancy of each type also 

 raises a certain amount of suspicion. In every 

 character true hybrids should show dominant, reces- 

 sive and mingled resultants in such varied combina- 

 tion that duplicate individuals are the exception, not 

 the rule. Dr. Dwight's postulated hybrids, how- 

 ever, are as constant in type as they are in blending. 

 On the whole, while we admire Dr. Dwight's serious 

 purpose and the amount of concentration he has 

 brought to bear upon the subject, it does not seem 

 that his attempt to form new standards of specific 

 relationship will be more acceptable than the old 

 ones. 



In untangling the relationships between these con- 

 fusing forms, however, the author has rendered a' 

 great service. Whilst his explanation of the causes 

 may not be entirely acceptable, the facts he has 

 brought out have probably simplified the subject 

 considerably and in the light of his painstaking re- 



