Sept., 1907 



EDITORIAI.S 



165 



support, moral and practical, in this line of its 

 work, and we of the Cooper Club are in line to 

 help in the securing of more rigid enforcement 

 of existing game and bird laws. 



We are pleased to inform Cooper Club mem- 

 bers that the entire cost of this large and 

 varied issue of The Condor is borne by Mr, 

 John Lewis Childs, whose interest in the 

 Club's welfare needs no further proof. Such a 

 large and generous donation means that we 

 are offering our readers in the present Volume 

 far more than their combined dues and sub- 

 scriptions would alone provide. We take this 

 opportunity of heartily thanking Mr. Childs. 



We have heard that Mr. R. H. Beck is con- 

 templating yet another expedition to the Gal- 

 apagos Archipelago. 



The new Secretaty of the Northern Division, 

 Mr. Roswell S. Wheeler, was one of the 

 original group of Cooper Club "boys" who 

 used to hold animated bird meetings at Bar- 

 low's or Taylor's thirteen years ago. Those 

 were jolly good times, and there's no reason 

 why we shouldn't enjoy similar occasions now 

 — only, perhaps, we are growing old and our 

 enthusiasm wanes. 



Let it be henceforth known, that The Con- 

 dor management will no longer print "For 

 Sale" ads., relating to birds or eggs. We have 

 been informed that it is contrary to the intent 

 of the law to in any way make a commer- 

 cial commodity out of such specimens, whether 

 taken under permit or not. 



Dr. William Legrange Ralph, the well-known 

 oulogist, died at Washington, D. C, on July 

 8th, at the age of 57. 



Dr. Ralph was born at Holland Patent, New 

 York, in 1851. He was graduated in medicine 

 in 1879 from the College of Physicians and 

 Surgeons in New York City, and afterwards 

 engaged in the practice of his profession in 

 Utica, where he had resided since early child- 

 hood; but delicate health obliged him to 

 abandon a medical career, and he turned to the 

 less exacting study of natural history. From 

 early boyhood he had cultivated a taste for this 

 subject, and he now began in earnest the forma- 

 tion of a local collection of birds, eggs, and 

 nests. In the study of the local avifauna he 

 was associated with Mr. Egbert Bagg, and the 

 researches of the two students resulted in the 

 publication of an "Annotated List of the Birds 

 of Oneida County, New York"i followed shortly 

 by some "Additional Notes on the Birds of 

 Oneida County, New York. "a 



It was to the subject of oology, however, that 

 Dr. Ralph chiefly directed his attention, and 



1 Trans. Oneida Hist. Soc, III, 1886, pp. ]0i-i47. 



2 Auk, VII, 1890. pp. 229-232. 



after nearly completing his collection of local 

 species he spent much time in searching for 

 desiderata, even employing men by the year in 

 the Adirondacks and in Florida to hunt for cer- 

 tain rarities. In this way, and by direct pur- 

 chase, he added many choice specimens to his 

 collection, and secured valuable information on 

 the nesting habits of various rare species. 



Dr. Ralph early made the acquaintance of 

 Major Bendire, and the two men soon became 

 close friends. After the Major assumed charge 

 of the National Museum collection of eggs, he 

 usually spent his vacation in Utica, while Dr. 

 Ralph always stopped at Washington on his 

 annual visits to Florida. When the "Life 

 Histories" were undertaken, he contributed 

 many notes for them, and the two published 

 volumes teem with items from his pen. In 

 1892 he sent the first installment of his collec- 

 tion to Washington, as a gift to the National 

 Museum. This generous act was followed year 

 after year by other donations, numbering in all 

 about 10,000 specimens, almost all of which 

 were in faultless condition, and accompanied 

 by ample data. 



In 1897, Dr. Ralph was chosen to fill the 

 vacancy caused by the death of Major Bendire, 

 and in 1901 his title was changed from Custo- 

 dian to Curator. In the same year it was 

 announced that he would continue the work on 

 "Life Histories," and he began at once to 

 accumulate data for the third volume (to 

 include the families in the A. O. U. "Check- 

 List" from the Fringillidse to the Coerebidae); 

 but owing to the precarious state of his health 

 the volume was incomplete at the time of his 

 death. 



Dr. Ralph was a genial, mild-mannered man, 

 of a uniformly cheerful and gentle disposition, 

 one whose loss will be keenly felt by a large 

 circle of friends and associates. — C. \V. R. 



COMMUNICATIONS 



THE POSSESSIVE FORM IN VERNACUI^AR 

 NOMENCLATURE 



Editors of The Condor: 



Mr. Dawson's suggestion that either the pos- 

 sessive or adjectival form is right in such cases, 

 for example, as Centronyx bairdii, seems open 

 to serious question. The sparrow was not given 

 to Mr. Baird. On the contrary, the name of 

 Baird was given to the sparrow. Then why on 

 earth should it be Baird's Sparrow? In many such 

 cases the man whose name is given to the bird 

 has never even seen the species, has had 

 nothing to do with its discovery and was not 

 even aware of the use of his name until the 

 publication of the description. To illustrate, 



