62 Tyler, Brown Creeper in Massachusetts. LJan. 



Mr. Walter Faxon has pointed out another change in our avi- 

 fauna due to the same cause, — the killing of the trees by moths. 

 Mr. William Brewster ^ writing in 1906 gives for this locality but 

 a single summer record of the Hairy Woodpecker {Dryobates villosus 

 villosus). At the present time, however, this bird is a not uncom- 

 mon summer resident in Lexington, Mass., a town included in the 

 Cambridge Region. Indeed during the past summer (1913) a 

 pair bred near the clearing where the Brown Creepers built their 

 five nests. 



THE FALLACY OF THE TENDENCY TOWARDS ULTRA- 

 MINUTE DISTINCTIONS. 



BY J. D. FIGGINS. 



Although conservative ornithologists deplore and have repeat- 

 edly protested against the seeming unfortunate tendency towards 

 the creation of endless subspecies upon differences too slight for 

 identification by physical comparison, an examination of recent 

 literature would indicate that but little had been accomplished. 



In certain genera many identifications are quite impossible 

 unless the student be willing to accept purely geographical evidence 

 of an extremely doubtful character. Indeed there are now numer- 

 ous forms unrecognizable by even their sponsors, except through a 

 knowledge of the locality from which such specimens were taken; 

 and were the subject of less importance one's regret would be limited 

 by his sense of humor. 



W^hile a geographical interval, together with physical differences, 

 or variations sufficiently pronounced to be apparent to the average 

 student would seem reasonable ground for separation, conservative 

 ornithologists doubt the wisdom of some of the late ultraminute 

 distinctions. A continuance of this "Futuristic" school of orni- 

 thology will obviously lead to geography as a text-book of more 



I Birds of the Cambridge Region, 1906, p. 210. 



