2q6 Loomis, Geographic Variation in No?nenclature. L Julv 



The study of specimens has made known geographic variation, 

 as such study has made known individual variation and variation 

 in sex, age, and season. Systematic ornithologists have groped 

 their way into the light ; of the sixteen variants, bearing trinomials, 

 among California ' swimming birds,' fifteen were first described 

 as species. 



The Song Sparrow from Petaluma, California, originally desig- 

 nated Ammodrotnus samuelis, has become a sort of classic illus- 

 tration of the way the facts of geographic variation have dawned 

 upon the minds of systematic ornithologists. 



Variation in sex and season in like manner has added to the 

 darkness ; for example, the male and female of Williamson's Sap- 

 sucker have been placed in different genera, and the winter and 

 summer plumages of the Marbled Murrelet have each been 

 described as distinct species. 



Nomenclature has been a means in gaining knowledge of varia- 

 tion. In seasonal and sexual variation it has proved a temporary 

 structure. Is this not also true in geographic variation ? Is not 

 nomenclature (binomial or trinomial) in geographic variation a scaf- 

 folding to be torn down rather than the edifice that is to abide? 



Granting all that is unfolded in the most elastic theories of 

 evolution concerning incipient species — it matters not whether 

 they hail from islands where geographic variation breaks down in 

 individual variation, or whether they be the artificially selected 

 sections from regions where the arid passes into the humid — we 

 are still confronted with the question : Is the science of ornithol- 

 ogy to be advanced or retarded by continuing the recognition of 

 geographic variation in nomenclature ? 



A glance at later American works on ornithology, containing 

 life-histories as well as the systematic aspects of the subject, 

 reveals that variants are often treated in the same manner as full- 

 fledged species ; both are given a vernacular name, description, 

 habitat, and biography. For example, the variant of the Murre 

 occurring on the Pacific is placed on the same footing, in this 

 respect, as the Tufted Puffin, notwithstanding the hiatus that 

 separates the Tufted Puffin from all other birds ; the Tufted Puffin 

 represents complete isolation of a form, the variant of the Murre 

 variation within the bounds of such an isolated form. Whatever 



