Vol XXXI , I cq 



1 1 ii ii i if every field-ornithologist can find as many errors in the ' Ranges' 

 1 fear thai pari of the Check-List must be acknowledged to !«• very in- 

 oomplete, The only one with whom I have corresponded on the subject, 

 a man <>f long and intensive field experience and most careful and reliable 

 in his work, writes thai very many of the records which he published in 

 'The A uk ' long ago were absolutely disregarded. 



One more poinl and I am done The European traveler to this country 

 might feel himself quite at home with a portion of the avifauna of our 

 eastern towns till he turned to the Check-List. Then he would find that 

 siiiiini., vulgaris, entering the Check-List through Greenland, had been 

 introduced and spread rapidly through New England and the Middle 

 States, bul thai Passer domesticus was not recognized as existing, and 

 nii^lit think he had made a discovery or was wrong in his identification 

 until he learned that our 'Manuals' and 'Local Lists' told quite another 

 story. This seems to me an unfair discrimination in favor of our later 

 assisted immigranl , 



I. oris B. Bishop. 

 New Haven, Conn., November is, 1912 



[The A. < ). I i ( iommil tee as well as the membership of the I Inion should 

 welcome a critical review of the Check-List by someone outside of the 

 Committee or those who were associated with ii; and thai such an able 

 and conscientious critic as Dr. Bishop can find no more serious faults 

 than those he hasset forth, after two years' study of the volume, is a 

 matter for congratulation, 



His criticisms fall under three heads: 



1. 'The ever debatable question of which subspecies and genera shall 

 be recognized and winch shall not. This matter was so fully discussed 

 bj Mi Jo eph Grinnell and the writer in the October number of 'The 



\uk ' thai it seem.; scarcely worth while to revert, to it, One point, however, 



should he made clear. Never so far as known to the writer has the Com- 

 mittee of its own initiative opened cases for reconsideration, even when 



getting out a new edition of the Check-List. The province of the Com- 

 mittee has always keen to pass judgment on changes Or new forms 

 proposed in published article-:, and in authorizing a new edition of the 

 Check-Lisl the Union did not requesl or expect a. revision of the forms 

 already accepted unless their status had been questioned. If l>r. Bishop 

 will formally state his reasons for the rejection of the subspecies to which 



he seems tO take exception the ( 'olninit t ee will i know reconsider the 



question of t heir recognil ion. 



2. Dr. Bishop criticises the treatment of the English sparrow and 

 Starling, and of European and Asiatic stragglers which have from time to 



tune occurred within the hunt ; of the Check-List or which occur more or 

 less regularly in (Ircenland. Here his criticism i.s well founded. As he 

 oorrectlj states, the specimens upon winch the records of the exotic l>irds 

 were based are, in the majority of cases not available, and either this fact 



