1907] Beebe: Geographic Variation in. Birds. 5 



planted to a region markedly different climatically from their 

 natural home, they would gradually lose their original character- 

 istics, and become, after a number of generations, more or less 

 modified, in better agreement with the new conditions of life. But 

 it would be apparently rash to expect a very material change in a 

 single generation. There is apparently not the least probability 

 that an egg of a large dusky Vancouver woodpecker taken to 

 Arizona would hatch into a smaller pale form like the race native 

 to Arizona." 



Dr. Allen then goes on to tell of the stocking of northern 

 preserves with the smaller, darker bob-whites from localities 

 farther south, and states that no change in size or color has been 

 observed. The same is said to be true of the bob-whites — sup- 

 posedly Floridian — which, one hundred years ago, were intro- 

 duced into Cuba, although there are now found in Cuba "quail 

 that are intermediate in characters between the true Cuban 

 form and the Florida form, due possibly to interbreeding 

 but also possibly to the action of environment upon the intro- 

 duced Florida stock." 



In a continuation of this discussion in a later number of 

 Science, Prof. T. D. A. Cockerell writes in the concluding para- 

 graph of his article, "Finally, it is by no means to be assumed 

 that the 'effects' of climate are necessarily direct, and not 

 brought about through the agency of natural selection." 



In a note at the conclusion of a paper on "The Variation 

 of Eutaenia in the Pacific Subregion" Mr. A. E. Brown says, 

 "That humidity in some way influences the metabolic processes 

 which lead to pigmentation can hardly be doubted. Tempera- 

 ture need scarcely be considered in the present case, for the dry 

 region, extending from Arizona to northern Montana, and to 

 considerable elevations, has a very great thermal range, while 

 the wet region is relatively equable. There is a suggested con- 

 nection between the large amount of uric acid produced by rep- 

 tiles and the fact that the yellow and orange coloring matter 

 from the wings of certain butterflies has yielded a substance 

 closely related to uric acid, but physiological chemistry is not 

 yet competent to explain how these waste products are converted 

 into pigments." 



Folsom contends in the case of insects that the "effects of 

 climatal influences and of nutrition are frequently adaptive and 

 often transmissible, as experiments have proved. There is, 

 however, much difference of opinion as to the precise way in 

 which these effects are transmitted." 



"Upon members of the Animal Kingdom," writes Dr. H. 



