78 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [fEB. 23, 



fessor Biiird was thus confronted at the beginning of his work 

 with a chaos of names and meagre descriptions, the legacy of 

 his predecessors. Even not a few of the species of Audubon 

 and Bachman were based on specimens from unknown local- 

 ities, not always correctly supposed to be North American. 

 Leconte, DeKay, Say, Ord, Ratinesque, and Harlan, and various 

 foreign authors, had each contributed to the list of nominal 

 species, many of which will forever remain undeterminable, while 

 others have been duly relegated to the limbos of synonymy. 

 The work of separating the chaff from the wheat, the false from 

 the true, was a perplexing task, an intricate riddle, which Baird 

 attacked with wonderful acumen and success, leaving a com- 

 paratively smooth and easy ])ath for his successors. 



This was, however, the period of excessive subdivision, the 

 smallest recognizable differences serving as the basis of specific 

 separation. Baird, as was natural, influenced by the methods 

 of his time, contributed his share to the list of synonyms ; yet, 

 considering the inadequateness of his material, his lapses were 

 few, and more than atoned for by the accuracy and detail of his 

 descriptions. If he failed to substantiate tangible differences 

 between closely allied forms, it was because they did not exist, 

 not from any lack of care in his work. Sometimes features of 

 seasonal or individual variation were mistaken for specific dif- 

 ference, but, as a rule, any forms recognized by Baird as species 

 will bear the closest scrutiny, and are rarely found to be without 

 some basis in nature — that is, if not ^' good species,'' they will be 

 found to be what we now call geographical forms, or "subspecies." 



The history of North American mammalogy and the history 

 of North American ornithology run in closely parallel lines, the 

 prominent workers being practically the same in each. In both 

 of these departments there have been periods of excessive split- 

 ting, followed by undue lumping. On a former occasion I have 

 referred at length to "the oscillations of the ornithological pen- 

 dulum" during the last thirty years. ^ In mammals, as in birds, 

 a period of "lumping "set in about 1870, following along period 

 during which the tendency had been to excessive subdivision, 

 and extending into the present decade. The period from 1870 

 to 1880 was thus not only a lumping period, but a transition 

 period, and also one of unequalled activity. Work was carried 

 on also from a basis in some respects the exact reverse from that 

 of the immediately preceding epoch. While the outcome was on 

 the whole a marked advance on what had preceded, it is ob- 

 viously open to material revision as seen from the standpoint of 



' The Auk, Vol. VII., Jan., 1890, pp. 1-9. 



