IBirti-lore 



A BI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE 

 DKVOTED TO THE STUDY AND PROTECTION OF BIRDS 



Vol. XIV May— June, 1912 No. 3 



An Eighteen- Year Retrospect* 



By FRANK M. CHAPMAN 



A REVIEW of the progress which has been made in the study of North 

 American birds during the eighteen years since the first edition of 

 the 'Handbook' was published, must impress one with the fact that 

 it is our knowledge of living rather than of dead birds which has increased. 



A more exact discrimination, larger and better collections, and gradually 

 changed standards as to the degree of differentiation which deserves recog- 

 nition by name, have added many forms to our 'Check-List,' and rendered 

 more definite our knowledge of the relationships of others. Particularly is 

 this true of the birds of the Pacific coast region. This systematic work has 

 appeared in various special papers and monographs, the most thorough of 

 which, not only for the ])eriod under consideration, but for any preceding 

 period in the history of North American ornithology, is Ridgway's 'Birds of 

 North and Middle America,' of which five volumes have thus far been issued. 



Thanks to the American Ornithologists' Union, our nomenclature has 

 been revised with the utmost care and, while the numerous resulting changes 

 in names may be annoying to present-day students, those who follow us will 

 enjoy, in greater measure, that stability which is the ideal of the biologist. 

 The third (1910) edition of the Union's 'Check-List' contains this modern 

 nomenclature; but it is worthy of note that the classification employed in 

 this work is the same as that used in the first (1886)- edition of the 'Check- 

 List.' So little advance has been made in this branch of ornithology that no 

 system of classification proposed since 1886 was considered sufficiently satis- 

 factory to warrant adoption by the Committee of the Union having in charge 

 the preparation of the iqio edition. 



The studies of Dwight and others have made far more definite our knowl- 

 edge of the molt of birds, the times and manner of feather-loss and renewal 

 having been determined for many species, with an exactness made possible 

 only by the collecting of specimens for this special purpose. At the same 



♦Forming the Historical Introduction to the revised edition of the Handbook of Birds of Eastern 

 North America. Published by permission of D. Appleton & Co. 



