Vo ™ VI1 ] General Notes. 145 



the past two or three years have devoted much time to raspberries have 

 hardly touched them this season." J. L. Cowgill of West Falls Church, Va. 

 states that he has noted " very little damage from birds this year on small 

 fruits in the neighborhood. Two years ago, the birds destroyed a great 

 many early cherries; this year practically no damage could be seen." 

 Charles R. Posey of Baltimore writes: " the only fruit which I had an op- 

 portunity of observing during the visitation of the locusts was cherries, and 

 I believe these to have practically entirely escaped damage by birds. The 

 locusts were excessively abundant." 



These observations give further support to a conclusion reached by most 

 students of economic ornithology, that birds almost invariably specialize on 

 the most abundant or most easily accessible food supply. This trait leads 

 to destructiveness when the abundant food supply is a cultivated fruit or 

 grain, as well as to usefulness when it is an injurious insect, or as in the 

 present case, where the effect is diversion of attack from cultivate 1 crops to 

 an abundant insect of no decided economic significance one way or the 

 other. — W. L. McAtee, U. S. Biological Survey, Washington, D. C. 



Nomenclatural Casuistry. — Human laws in their origin and applica- 

 tion rest upon a foundation of common sense, and what is true of jurispru- 

 dence is equally true of nomenclature. Its laws, canons or rules must meet 

 the approval of the majority of the few who frame them and use them or 

 they will fail in their purpose. Now and then they suffer through a strained 

 interpretation and it is a case of this sort to which attention is here drawn 

 because it threatens to open wide the door to all kinds of nomenclatural 

 casuistry. 



Recently, a western race of the Red-headed Woodpecker has been 

 described (Oberholser, Canadian Field-Nat. XXXIII, September 1919, 

 pp. 48-50). Whether the race is worthy of recognition need not now con- 

 cern us, but a name has been selected that was used purely inadvertently 

 in a local list. Even the describer admits this for he begins by saying: 

 " The name Melanerpes erythrophthalmus is apparently a lapsus calami for 

 Melanerpes erythrocephalus and there is no other evidence that the author 

 intended to describe a new species or subspecies. The name Melanerpes 

 erythrophthalmus does not occur in the index but the species is duly entered 

 there as Melanerpes erythrocephalus." Farther quotation and farther com- 

 ment would seem superfluous for Article 19 of the International Rules of 

 Nomenclature is applicable both in the spirit and in the letter. Here is a 

 very obvious lapsus calami according to contemporaneous evidence whether 

 the slip be of the pen or of the brain that directed the pen. We all have such 

 slips and perhaps Art. 19 is designated to protect frail humanity. To put 

 another construction upon this case is to make a plaything of nomenclature 

 and set us wondering how far its rules may be twisted into producing fan- 

 tastic results. Let it not be forgotten that we need a safe and sane nomen- 

 clature. — Jonathan Dwight, M. D., 34 E. 70th St., New York City. 



