ae eo ee eee 
Mae | Correpondence. ale 
* [The first paragraphs of Mr. Taverner’s communication, and comments 
in the current numbers of some of our ornithological journals bring up a 
matter of very great moment to editors, 7. e. What to do with sight records 
and how to be consistent in the practice of any plan that may be adopted? 
A few remarks on this subject would seem to be in order although they do 
not cover the main point of Mr. Taverner’s letter. 
‘The Auk’ has questioned the accuracy of certain ‘sight’ records pub- 
lished elsewhere and has in turn been criticized for certain ‘sight’ records 
that have appeared in itsown columns. ‘J. D.’ writing in the review pages 
of ‘Bird-Lore’ criticizes the publication of ‘sight’ records — more particu- 
larly of races only slightly differentiated from others, yet we rarely find any 
but ‘sight’ records in ‘Bird-Lore’ and the last number contains a positive 
‘sight’ identification of Dendroica dominica dominica although it is question- 
able whether this race can be positively distinguished in the field from D. d. 
albilora. ‘The Condor’ recently contained a severe editorial criticism of 
the publication of ‘sight’ records by incompetent observers and scored 
authors who have not posted themselves on the previous literature of their 
subject, yet in the same issue appeared the first record of a certain bird for 
the State of Texas, a ‘sight’ record, casually published, without editorial 
comment by an author whose name does not appear in any of the indices 
to ‘The Condor’ as a previous contributor to ornithological literature. 
Certain minor ornithological journals and independent publications of 
‘bird clubs’ consider that all is grist ‘that comes to their mill and publish 
any records that their members may hand in. These statements are made 
not in a spirit of criticism but simply to show the difficulty of consistency 
and also the nature of the condition that we face. 
Now as to the best plan to adopt in regard to‘ sight’ raeords: We may, 
it would seem, divide such records into two categories: (1) Races or species 
which so closely resemble other forms as to render positive identification 
impossible without having a specimen in hand. (2) Species which are rare 
or unusual in the locality at which the observation is made and with which. 
the observer has perhaps had no previous experience. In cases of the first 
category the extreme attitude would be to publish no records except those 
based upon specimens actually collected. This would of course be out of 
the question. Almost all of our data on bird migration, bird habits, ete. 
are based upon ‘sight’ records and must of necessity be so. As a matter 
of fact we are willing to accept practically all sight records for everyday 
birds and only balk when it comes to records of rare or unusual species. 
There is just as much chance of one of the Juncos that we record as dle 
hyemalis hyemalis belonging to one of the western races as there is of the 
Evening Grosbeak of the past winter belonging to the western instead of 
the eastern form, the possibility to which ‘J. D.’ calls attention. But we 
fail to see where we should profit by refusing to record observations on 
eastern Juncos under the caption Junco hyemalis hyemalis. Any compiler 
of a state report or general work where subspecies are used will undoubtedly 
quote our observations under that heading because the evidence of speci- 
