° 1918 J Correspondence. 505 



California Fish and Game, Vol. 4, No. 3, July, 1913. 



Condor, The, XX, No. 4, July-August, 1918. 



Current Items of Interest, Nos. 37 and 38, June 29 and July 1, 1918. 



Emu, The, XVIII, Part I, July, 1918. 



Fins, Feathers and Fur, No. 14, June, 1918. 



Ibis, The, (10), VI, No. 3, July, 1918. 



New Jersey Audubon Bulletin, No. 26, July 1, 1918. 



Oblogist, The, XXXV, Nos. 7 and 8, July and August, 1918. 



Ottawa Naturalist, The, XXXI, No. 12, March, 1918 and XXXII, 

 No. 1, April, 1918. 



Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, LXX, 

 Part I, 1918. 



Revue Frangaise d'Ornithologie, Nos. 108, 109, 110, 111, April-July, 1918. 



Science, N. S., Nos. 1225-1237. 



Scottish Naturalist, The, No. 77 and 78, June, 1918. 



South Australian Ornithologist, The, III, Nos. 36 and 7, April and July, 

 1918. 



Wilson Bulletin, The, XXX, No. 2, June, 1918. 



Zoological Society Bulletin, XXI, Nos. 3 and 4, May and July, 1918. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



Concerning a Certain Tendency in Systematic Ornithology. 



Editor of 'The Auk': 



The more I think of it, the more dangerous appears to me to be the stand 

 of those few who would assign to an extreme of one subspecies or species 

 (an individual from within the breeding range of that form as typically 

 represented by the mean) the name of an essentially different subspecies 

 or species which that individual happens to resemble. 



To illustrate, Dr. Dwight in his recent essay on the Genus Junco (Bull. 

 Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. XXXVIII, 1918, pp. 269-309, 5 text-figs, 

 [maps], pis. XI-XIII), cites (p. 293) the case of a series of breeding juncos, 

 one hundred males, all from one locality in the Sierra Nevada of central 

 California. He finds in this series, with regard to one character, color, 

 variations which lead him to refer about seventy-five percent (with pinkish 

 brown backs) to thurberi, fifteen percent (with browner backs) to "couesi," 

 and a smaller percentage (with deeply ruddy backs) to oregonus. Of 

 course, as pointed out by him, there are further variations, and also these 

 categories are not sharply demarked. Dwight says (p. 294): "I do not 

 see how we can escape the necessity of calling a specimen oregonus or 



