NO. 12 BODY TEMPERATURE OF BIRDS WETMORE 33 



which it was found necessary to omit from this paper owing to the 

 excessive cost of pubhshing tabular matter, is deposited in the files 

 of the Smithsonian Institution and may be consulted by those who 

 wish to use the data contained in it. 



The order of arrangement and the nomenclature, followed is that 

 of the third edition of the American Ornithologist's Union Check-list 

 of Birds, published in iQio."" By referring to this check-list physiolo- 

 gists and others interested in these tables, who may not have made 

 detailed studies of birds, will have no difficulty in ascertaining the 

 application of the names that are used, and the relationship of the 

 various forms that are treated. At one time the writer intended, in 

 publishing this information, to use names of birds in accordance with 

 the most modern findings in nomenclature, and to arrange them in 

 a sequence of families that would express his own ideas in classifica- 

 tion. The latter idea was commendable as it tended to place the 

 species into what may be considered a somewhat more natural sequence 

 that showed a tendency (not universal, however) for a gradual 

 increase in degree of bodily temperature from forms low in the scale 

 to those conceded to be higher in development. With regard to the 

 names to be employed it was soon seen that changes were so rapid that 

 they tended to bewilder even those more or less adept in such matters, 

 while to workers in other fields, they would be wholly unintelligible 

 without great expenditure of time in looking up and verifying the 

 various authorities. As the present contribution is not one of research 

 into systematic ornithology but rather a treatise designed to throw 

 light upon the physiological and more general aspects of our science, 

 this scheme of using such a classification was abandoned and another 

 plan was adopted. 



In table 3 is given a synopsis of the information of all of the records 

 secured with the average, minimum and maximum temperatures sum- 

 marized for males and females of the species treated so far as this 

 data is available. In this table attempt is made to arrange the matter 

 in order of convenience for reference. The name and sex of the bird 

 are followed by the mean temperature. After this are given the mini- 

 mum and maximum range, the number of records available, and a 

 symbol that indicates the manner in which they were taken, the abbre- 

 viation R. meaning rectal and I. interthoracic. In this table subspecific 

 names are ignored entirely and all information is grouped under 



^ Check-list of North American Birds, prepared by a Committee of the 

 American Ornithologists' Union, Third Edition (Revised), New York, 1910, 

 pp. 1-430, 2 maps. 



