4 h^\.\.j?.TA, The A. O. U. Check-List. ■ \_^^^ 



The total net gain for the whole seventeen years is, as tabulated 

 above, 54 species and 181 subspecies. Of the 54 species added, 

 it is noteworthy that 21, or nearly one-half, have come into the 

 list merely as stragglers and form no essential part of the fauna. 

 The number of such forms is now 93, or nearly eleven percent. 

 Excluding these waifs and strays, which reach us in about equal 

 numbers from the Old World and from tropical America, we have 

 as proper components of the fauna 730 species and 362 subspecies. 



Other changes of some interest, but of only slight importance, 

 are the reduction of three species to subspecies, and the raising 

 of two subspecies to specific rank; also the elimination of five 

 species and two subspecies. Four species have been added to 

 the Hypothetical List, and three removed from the Hypothetical 

 List to the Check-List proper. 



In comparing the two periods into which we have divided the 

 history of the Check List, the second period of seven years shows 

 far more changes in names than marked the first period of nine 

 years. During the first period only 14 changes were made in 

 generic names as against 34 in the second, these changes affecting 

 only 14 species and three subspecies; while in the second period 

 76 species and 22 subspecies were thus affected. During the 

 first period the names of 16 species and 5 subspecies were 

 changed, in addition to the modifications due to the changes in 

 generic names, as against 22 and 20, respectively, for the second 

 period. Of the total of 178 changes that have been made in the 

 names of species and subspecies, only 38 were made in the first 

 period and 140 in the second. As the increase has been in a 

 constantly accelerated ratio, this does not seem to present an 

 encouraging outlook for the future. 



What is the explanation of the accelerated increase, both in 

 additions to the Check-List and in name-changes? In a word, 

 the great increase in the number of workers during the last five or 

 six years. When the Check-List was compiled and published, and 

 for quite a number of years after, the number of prominent in- 

 vestigators who really had much hand in describing new forms or 

 were meddling to any great extent with questions of nomenclature, 

 could almost be numbered on the fingers of one hand. Five, or 

 at most seven, would include all properly to be included in this 



