Vol. xi.] 84 
Even here, in our little home isles, it is only quite recently 
that our naturalists have been able to show that we have 
stable local varieties amongst our resident or breeding-birds. 
Naturally, the range of variation is not what it is in larger 
countries—such as my own field of work, India. Here we 
find great alluvial plains and stupendous mountains, wonder- 
ful forests and parching deserts, burning heat and bitter 
cold, regions where the maximum rainfall of the world is 
registered and others where in some years no rain falls. 
But in Great Britain we have our comparatively dry areas 
and wet areas, our colder and our warmer counties, our 
forests and our open moors, so even here we find that 
geographical conditions suffice to induce certain corre- 
sponding variations in their inhabitants, and as time goes 
on we shall certainly be able yet to find more matter of 
interest, more riddles of evolution to solve, and more 
material for future naturalists to work on. 
When zoological specimens were first collected, data were 
for the most part neglected, and to such an extent that there 
are many instances of birds being named after countries in 
which they have never occurred. The collectors having 
collected from many places made no notes, and when they 
returned home trusted to a memory which played them false, 
with the result mentioned. 
Nowadays, the would-be successful field-naturalist, who 
wishes to advance knowledge in any degree, must be a man 
of the closest observation, of keen intelligence, and of most 
careful, methodical habits. No one dare trust to memory 
now, and a careful record must be kept of anything and 
everything which may assist the museum man in collating 
his facts and basing his arguments to prove whatever 
theories he may be able to propound. 
It was as a field-naturalist myself that I first felt that 
binomialism did not suffice for my working, and arguments 
between myself and the late Mr. H. W. Oates arose simply 
because he could not then accept the now admitted fact that 
subspecies are much more common than species, and that 
geographical races require determination even more than 
