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Bird - Lore 



A Bi-Monthly Magazine 

 Devoted to the Study and Protection of Birds 



OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE AUDUBON SOCIETIES 



Edited by FRANK M. CHAPMAN 



ContributingEditor.MABELOSGOOD WRIGHT 



Published by D. APPLETON & CO. 



Vol. XVI Published February 4, 1913 No. 1 



SUBSCRIPTION RATES 

 Price in the United States. Canada and Mexico, twenty cents 

 a number, one dollar a year, postage paid. 



COPYRIGHTED. 1913, BY FRANK M. CHAPMAN 



Bird-Lore's Motto: 

 A Bird in the Bush Is Worth Two in the Band 



The southward invasion this winter of 

 Acadian Chickadees has brought this 

 species to the notice of many observers 

 to whom it was before a stranger, and 

 various notes we have received indicate 

 that the comparatively recent change in 

 the common name of this eastern form has 

 created more or less confusion. 



In 1722 Forster described a Chickadee 

 from Ft. Severn, Hudson Bay, as Parus 

 [now Penthestes] hudsonicus, and, until 

 the 19 10 edition of the American Orni- 

 thologists' Union's 'Check-List' appeared, 

 this bird, commonly known as the 'Hud- 

 sonian Chickadee,' was the only bird of 

 its type recognized by the Union from 

 eastern North America. In 1863, however, 

 Bryant described an eastern race of this 

 Chickadee as Parus hudsonicus var. 

 littoralis, basing his description on a 

 specimen from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. 

 Bryant's proposed race was ignored for 

 many years, but it proves to be recog- 

 nizable, and the name littoralis is now 

 applied to the Chickadees of the hud- 

 sonicus type inhabiting northern New 

 England, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, 

 Quebec and Newfoundland, while the 

 subspecific name hudsonicus is restricted 

 to those from farther north and west. It 

 is to this more northern race that the 

 name Hudsonian Chickadee now properly 

 belongs, while to littoralis, the more 

 southern race, the name Acadian Chicka- 

 dee has been given. The differences 

 between the two are too slight to be 



obvious in nature, but an examination of 

 specimens proves, as might be expected, 

 that the birds which have visited southern 

 New England this winter are of the 

 littoralis type^ and hence they should be 

 known as Acadian Chickadees. 



Mr. W. L. Dawson's bird census from 

 Santa Barbara, published on another 

 page, came at the last moment when it 

 was possible to insert it. He writes: 

 "Just as I am closing I am reminded that 

 I have followed my habitual order of the 

 California Check-List (GrinneU's) instead 

 of the A. O. U., as I had intended." He 

 adds that he had not time to revise his 

 list, nor have we. It is too interest- 

 ing to omit, and it is published therefore 

 as an excellent illustration of the evil of 

 using other than the accepted standard 

 of classification for faunal lists in which 

 convenience of reference is of infinitely 

 greater importance than the expression of 

 one's opinion .as to whether one family of 

 birds should precede or succeed another. 



Mr. Fuertes' articles on the songs of 

 tropical birds seem to us to prove what we 

 have long believed to be true, that one 

 can best convey a conception of the char- 

 acter of certain songs by describing the 

 effect on the listener rather than the song 

 itself. 



Purposes of exact analytical record may 

 possibly be served by musical annotation, 

 when the employment of this method is 

 possible; but miles of notes accurately 

 placing on the staff the trills of the Tina- 

 mou would not begin to convey the impres- 

 sion created by its song as vividly as 

 Fuertes does in a paragraph. 



Leo E. Miller, one of the representa- 

 tives of the American Museum, with 

 Colonel Roosevelt, writes us from Buenos 

 Aires that he saw in a warehouse there 

 60,000 kilos of Rhea plumes taken from 

 killed birds. The figures are almost 

 incredible. That a single firm should have 

 60 tons of the feathers of this bird at one 

 time implies destruction on a scale which 

 surely no species can long withstand. 



