OBSERVATIONS AND QUERIES. 95 



to be identified and studied ? Some workers may be satisfied with making 

 apparent species of a selection of them, and leaving the remainder unnamed, 

 but personally I prefer trinominals, and I have adopted them in my "Concise 

 Handbook," although well aware that my action will subject me to a storm 

 of censure. In reply to Mr. Butterfield's question, I may say that I regard 

 the terms " race" and " sub-species " as almost but not quite synonymous. 

 Mr. Butterfield can scarcely need me to explain what a geographical " race " 

 is, as he can doubtlessly appreciate such an one in the P. palustris dresseri 

 referred to. The term sub-species is apparently used in its strictest sense 

 by many systematists to distinguish a race or form which constantly differs 

 to a more than usually marked extent from the type, and so seems to justify 

 its recognition as a good sub-species, and entitled to the name of a species. 

 The race just mentioned even becomes under the name of P. dresseri, to all 

 intents and purposes a valid species in the judgment of those anti-evolutionists 

 who cannot otherwise recognise natural variations from the type, however con- 

 stant. The example of the Ring-Ouzel affords an argument for me, inasmuch 

 as it proves the extent to which certain types of avian life are affected by 

 geographical distribution, or by climate, which amounts to much the same 

 thing, as evidenced by the fact that at the same latitudes, in widely different 

 places, such forms as the Ring-Ouzel exhibit precisely the same variation 

 from the type, and in this case it seems desirable and proper to refer to 

 examples from both districts as being of the same race. After all a name is 

 a name, and I think that the very origin and usage of scientific designations 

 justify the adoption of trinominals. I cannot see, moreover, why trinominals 

 should be more ' ' clumsy " in scientific than in trivial nomenclature ; we fear 

 not to speak of the " Scandinavian Rock Pipit," and so on ad infinitum. — H. 

 Kirke Swank. 



Scarcity of the Black Crow in Sussex.— War has been waged so 

 successfully (if the results be rightly described as success), against the 

 "formerly very abundant'' Black or Carrion Crow in Sussex, that the 

 chronicler of the avifauna of the county fears that the species " bids fair to 

 become altogether extinct." I have been at some pains to become acquainted 

 with the real state of affairs, and I have found the truth of Mr. Borrer's remark 

 increasingly evident. There are parts of the county where the species has 

 not been seen for ten years, and, indeed, I was recently told by an old 

 resident in the eastern part that he had not seen a Black Crow for over 

 double that space of time. It would be of interest to know how general has 

 been the decrease*of the bird in Britain of late years, and perhaps I may be 

 allowed to invite readers of The Ornithologist who live in different parls 

 cf Britain to contribute to the solution of the question by stating in a coir- 



