" ■ J LooMis, Geographic Variation in Nojneiiclafure. 207 



future possibilities there may be in evolution, the Tufted Puffin 

 and the variant of the Murre are not now of the same rank. We 

 are to work out the questions of bird life of to-day, not those of 

 ten thousand years hence. In spite of our boasted advance, we 

 treat variants under trinomials in the same manner Professor 

 Baird treated them in 1858 under binomials, fulfilling the adage 

 that "extremes always meet." 



If we deal with the food of birds, we find it convenient to ignore 

 variants; the intermediates might be the only individuals with full 

 stomachs. Thus it happens, that Dr. Judd has lumped all the 

 Loggerheads in dealing with the food of our Shrikes.^ Turn in 

 what direction we will in the study of birds upon the basis of 

 subspecies, intermediates bar the way. 



Systematic ornithologists have been forced to seek stability in 

 nomenclature in the law of priority. From subspecies, however, 

 there is no refuge, except the opinion of experts, which varies 

 with the type of mind of the individual expert.'- 



Mr. Ridgway in the preface to the first part of his ' Birds of 

 North and Middle America ' says : " No doubt many of the forms 

 which the author has recognized as subspecies in the present work 

 may appear trivial to others, especially those who have not h; d 

 advantage of the material upon which they are based ; but in all 

 cases it has been the author's desire to express exactly the facts 

 as they appear to him in the light of the evidence examined, with- 

 out any regard whatever to preconceived ideas, either of his own 

 or of others, and without consideration of the inconvenience which 

 may result to those who are inclined to resent innovations, forget- 

 ful of the fact that knowledge cannot be complete until all is 

 known." 



Dr. Allen in a review of this work remarks : ^ "Yet it is some- 

 times possible for slight differences to become magnified and 

 their importance over-estimated by long and intense consideration 

 of them — in other words, there is danger of losing one's poise of 



' Bull. No. 9, U. S. Dept. Agric, Div. Biol. Surv., p. 20. 

 - The case is aggravated when the attempt is made to create species from 

 extremes of geographic variation. 

 3 The Auk, Vol. XIX, p. 102. 



