8f,- IOWA ACAD'ElMY OF SCIENCE Vol. XXV, 1918 



also ha\e been received from Mrs. H. M. Bailey and Mrs. H. J. 

 Taylor, of Sioux City. The writer should also not fail to 

 acknowledge several very good notes received from Dr. Guy C. 

 Rich, who made observations in the Sioux City Area for up- 

 wards of twenty years. My own desultory notes in Union coun- 

 ty date from 1910. 



All of the notes and records, except some of Mr. Anderson's, 

 refer to Union county, which, is separated from Sioux City and 

 Woodbury county, Iowa, by Big Sioux river; it is separated 

 from Dakota county, Nebraska, by Missouri river. Geographi- 

 cally, Union county tapers to a point which lies in the fork of 

 Missouri and Big Sioux rivers. 



Considerable care has been taken to make no statement with- 

 out proper information or authority. Where the authority is 

 not indicated, the writer assumes direct responsibility. 



In the case of common birds, and where the knowledge is ade- 

 quate, an attempt has been made to place an estimate on the 

 relative abundance of species. In other cases, however, the 

 writer has merely given the facts of particular records, and has 

 omitted an estimate of relative abundance, even though our 

 knowledge of the status of the species in ddjacent localities 

 might be ample to warrant such an inference. The purpose 

 has been, therefore, to isolate the Union county work from that 

 which has been done in adjacent counties. 



It will be easily observed that the author has followed the 

 nomenclature of the last Check List of the American Ornithol- 

 ogists' Union, except in the matter' of trinomials. In a great 

 many cases the subspecies which have been recognized have little 

 or no biological significance. In many cases, also, even the tax- 

 onomist cannot determine the subspecies without the knowledge 

 of its locality. Therefore, when the geographical ranges are 

 once arbitrarily fixed, anyone can affix the appropriate sub- 

 specific term as correctly as can the author. Or, if it is objected 

 that only through such local lists can the geographical ranges 

 of subspecific forms be determined, then it might be answered 

 that when skins are sent away to experts for determination, the 

 results do not represent the knowledge or contribution of the 

 author, and are, therefore, not required in his paper. It may 

 also be a debatable question whether trinomial nomenclature 

 and the further splitting of species, can contribute to the ad- 

 vancement of science, rather than to its embarrassment. 



