THE OOLOGIST 



The Poor Cowbird. 



In attendance upon a meeting of the 

 Cooper Club at Los Angeles, a few 

 days ago, the Editor listened to a 

 very readable paper on the alleged 

 discovery of a new sub-species of the 

 Cowbird inhabiting the arid lands of 

 Utah and Nevada; presumably also 

 substantially all the lands lying be- 

 tween Sierra Nevada and Rocky Moun- 

 tains. 



The January issue of the Auk con- 

 tains another article upon the alleged 

 discovery of another sub-species of 

 Cowbird inhabiting Northwest Canada. 

 We extend our sympathy to the Cow- 

 bird. We presume many alleged sub- 

 species will now be discovered inhabit- 

 ing various portions of the United 

 States. The unfortunate Cowbird will 

 now be torn, rent, cut chopped and 

 split into infinitismal fragments of 

 sub-species with which proceeding we 

 have absolutely no sympathy what- 

 ever, as it is now carried on in Ameri- 

 can ornithology. Witness the fate of 

 the Song Sparrow, Redwing Blackbird, 

 Horned Lark, etc., most of which have 

 been sub-divided and refined and re- 

 refined until even the great bird doc- 

 tors often are unable to tell which is 

 which, nor from whence the specimen 

 came; and frequently wind up as an 

 excuse for their lack of knowledge of 

 the alleged knowledge necessary to 

 differentiate the various sub-species 

 with this statement — "intermediate 

 between" so and so. 



Collections. 



We have just recently examined and 

 estimated the value of the collection 

 of eggs of Mr. Thomas H. Jackson of 

 Westchester, Pennsylvania, and learn 

 it to be among the most complete in 

 the country, containing as it does, 737 

 species and sub-si)ecies, mostly in sin- 

 gle sets; though in many of the rarer 

 varieties, and in some of the exceed- 

 ingly rare species, goodly series are 

 represented. It is remarkable for a 

 number of unusually rare specimens 

 in proportion to the size of the collec- 

 tion. 



Our old friend Professor W. Otto 

 Emerson of Hayards, California, kind- 

 ly forwarded us a list of his collection 

 of nests and eggs. It was a pleasure 

 to peruse the same and to learrr that 

 it represented 469 species and sub- 

 species of North American birds, most- 

 ly in single sets, through a consider- 

 able proportion are represented by 

 series. Professor Emerson's well 

 known accuracy and care is reflected 

 in this accumulation, and he is to be 

 congratulated upon the splendid rep- 

 resentation that his collection con- 

 tains. 



Fred Truesdale of Shandon, Califor- 

 nia forwarded us the datas accompany- 

 ing the eggs in his collection for our 

 inspection. Though a comparatively 

 beginner in oology, ,Mr. Truesdale has 

 accumulated 158 varieties, some of 

 them exceedingly rare specimens, and 

 in the course of years to come, we 

 have no doubt it will become one of 

 the leading collections on the coast. 



See to it that your name is on our 

 subscription list for 1910. 



Our Make Up. 

 With this issue we make a slight 

 change in the make-up of THE OOLO 

 GIST. Hereafter the advertising mat 

 ter will be paged with Roman letters, 

 and the reading matter numerically. 



