64 DwiGHT, Exaltation of the Subspecies. ^^^^ 



metallic than that of the Olive-backed Thrush. On the loth of 

 August I found a Hermit calling to her brood in the undergrowth 

 with a low cluck that was instantly changed to the alarm note 

 when my presence became known. 



On the wooded slopes about Shelburne Harbor the Hermit 

 Thrush was apparently abundant. In the hush of the long twi- 

 light we would drift far out toward the edge of burnished water, 

 listening to the vesper strains of some late singer that came with 

 infinite sweetness out of the gathering gloom of the farther shore. 



THE EXALTATION OF THE SUBSPECIES. 



BY JONATHAN DWIGHT, JR., M. D. 



Whatever may be the intrinsic worth of the subspecies, signs 

 are not wanting, at the present time, that its value, especially in 

 the domain of ornithology, is impairec;^ by the undue prominence 

 which it has attained. Some of us hold it so close to the eye that 

 all fields beyond are obscured and the one near object becomes 

 not a part of ornithology but the aim and end of all our 

 research. Our efforts are so one-sided that minute variations of 

 dimension or color are magnified by their very proximity until 

 they afford foothold for the rising flood of names that threatens to 

 undermine the very foundations of trinomial nomenclature. It 

 seems to be forgotten that the subspecies is only a convenient rec- 

 ognition of geographical variation within the limits of the species. 

 Its rise began when the distribution of the species of many parts 

 of the globe had been thoroughly determined, and systematists 

 welcomed it as a new and useful outlet for activity. Since that 

 time down to the present, the dividing and re-dividing of old 

 species into geographical races or subspecies has gone on apace 

 — not as a matter of making two blades of grass grow where one 

 grew before but of splitting the one blade. 



The luxuriant growth of the subspecies, while unquestionably 



