340 Corrcspo/idence. [^",y 



Ornithologische Monatsberichte, V, April-June, 1897. 

 Osprey, Tlio, I, Nos. 6-7, April-June, 1897. 

 Ottawa Naturalist, X, No. 12, XI, Nos. i, 2, March-June, 1S97. 

 Our Animal Friends, XXIV, Nos. 8-10, April-June, 1897. 

 Proceedings yVcademy of Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 1897, Part i. 

 Proceedings California Acad. Sci., 2d Ser., VI, 1896, 3d Ser., Zoology, 

 I, Nos. 1-3, 1897, Geology, I, No. i, 1897. 

 Proceedings Indiana Acad. Sci., 1894, 1895. 

 Science (2) V, Nos. 115-130, 1897. 



Shooting and Fishing, XXI, Nos. 23-26, XXII, Nos. i-io, 1897. 

 Transactions of tlie Nat. Hist. Soc. of Glasgow, IV, part 3, 1895-96. 

 Zoologist, Tiie (4), Nos. 4-6, April-June, 1897. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



The A. O. U. Check-List. 



Editors of 'The Auk': — 



Dear Sirs : — I have been much impressed with Dr. Coues's arraignment 

 of the arrangement of our present Check-List — having felt for some 

 time its deficiencies, but scarcely daring to hope for its improvement. 

 While, of course, aware of the real difliculties in the way and the clash of 

 opinions that must arise when the anchors are raised, I believe that there 

 is a call now not only for a rearrangement of the genera and species in 

 many places, but that, in some instances, this should extend to the 

 families — just possibly to an order or two. 



With our present sequence of orders, many of the families, as they now 

 stand, express a propinquity or continuity of kinsliip that is not always 

 the sequence of the probabl.e development; and the question may arise in 

 some minds, which of these two relationships is the more important. 

 But in most cases the interests may both be as well or better expressed by 

 the newer arrangement. Thus in the Paludicohe, while the Rallida; are 

 certainly the lowest or nearest the Apteryx and the Podicipidas yet in our 

 linear arrangement they are not contiguous to either of these groups; but 

 since they precede the LimicoUe, their high position in their own order 

 places them rightly as the next of kin to this order above. While this 

 may seem a rather 'natural' gradation the position of the Jacanidae in 

 the Limicoht, viewed from either standpoint, seems preposterous, when 

 we recall how Ralline is its structure. If we had in our North American 

 birds any of the many connecting links that lie between the Limicola? 

 and the Ilerodiones, the Jacanid;e might be crowded away from the lower 

 edge of its order by the stronger claims of these; but our presumption is 

 that our list expresses the best sequence of our own birds. 



