150 Correspondence. [}.^ 



It was with eager interest t hat somewhat over a year ago I opened this 

 volume for the fust time, for. although it was my personal opinion that our 

 knowledge of North Americas subspecies was not nearly complete enough 

 for the preparation of a List that would be in any way permanent 1 knew 

 that earnest, conscientious work had been done on it by able men. and I 

 was delighted to see the result of their labors My first impressions were 

 altogether favorable. 1 liked the general arrangement, the manner in which 

 subspecies were grouped under species and the range given for each, and 

 the statement of the locality from which the type came. The geographical 

 ranges seemed wonderfully complete and 1 found the accents a correction 

 to many unconscious errors in pronunciation. 1 was pleased to find the 

 old order retained for its convenience, and to read in the Preface the brave 

 confession of ignorance as to a true classification; for, while such an emi- 

 nent avian anatomist as by craft holds thai the earliest birds were small 

 and arboreal, how can we hope to prepare at present a correct phylogenetic 

 tree, since early avian fossils are few and among them we find such spe- 

 cialized large and flightless birds as Hesperornis in the Cretaceous and 

 injstoniis in the bower Eocene? So I felt we had an altogether excellent 

 work, which would long be the standard, and for which the Committee of 

 the Union could not receive too much praise. 



but as L began the actual use of the book in ornithological work I ran 

 into strange anomalies and omissions that led me to suspect that though 

 the head was undoubtedly gold baser metal might be found elsewhere. 

 And as I read the Sixteenth Supplement, published in' The Auk' for last 

 July, 1 was still more puzzled by rulings that seemed strange, and some- 

 times totally inconsistent with the body of the work. For, having dis- 

 claimed responsibility for the classification and given due credit for the 

 geographical distribution, the Committee certainly must be held responsible 

 for the standing of all the species and subspecies recognized in this new- 

 edition. !n the annual supplement, the authors can be held liable only for 

 the changes made or rejected therein, but certainly state their belief in the 

 correctness of the new edition as a whole by printing it over their signatures. 



Musing on these matters as 1 turned the pages of 'The Auk,' 1 came to 

 the interesting editorial which requested, it seemed to me. loyalty by the 

 Union to the decisions of the Committee. In the value oi loyalty I heartily 

 agree, for without recognition of authority there can be no stability in 

 nomenclature or anything else. But to whom should we be loyal! That 

 was my first thought ; for, 1 confess, the names of the Committee had left 

 my memory. At the head of the article referred to I found them the 

 foremost American ornithologists, men who have done and are doing 

 immensely valuable work, and to whose opinion on all questions strictly 

 of nomenclature and classification we naturally bow. but is their judg- 

 ment infallible regarding the recognition of new subspecies? Only two have 

 done much work in this direction within recent years, ami of these one is 

 notoriously indifferent to the decisions of the Committee. As the others 

 are certainly competent to do work of this kind, and as most of them have 



