Nov., 1922 
Volume III, number 3, of “The Murre- 
let”, mimeographed “Official Bulletin of the 
Pacific Northwest Bird and Mammal Club”, 
reached us November 10. The editor, Mr. 
F. S. Hall of the Washington State Muse- 
um, Seattle, is to be congratulated upon 
the success of his efforts to produce a cred- 
itable journal with small resources. This 
issue contains several articles and notes on 
birds, valuable at least from a local stand- 
point, under the authorship of J. Hooper 
Bowles, S. F.. Rathbun, Kenneth Racey, 
Walter F. Burton, C. de B. Green, E. A. 
Kitchin, and others. 
The Chicago meeting of the American 
Ornithologists’ Union, held October 23 to 
26, was well attended. More than forty 
papers were read. Elections included Dr. 
Arthur A, Allen to the class of Fellows, and 
D. R. Dickey, A. O. Gross, W. Huber, T. I. 
Storer and J. T. Zimmer to the class of 
Members. 
Mr. M. P. -Skinner, Yellowstone Park, 
Wyoming, is contemplating early publica- 
tion of his book on the “Birds of the Yel- 
lowstone”’. Readers of THE CONDOR are al- 
ready familiar with the type of literature 
produced by Mr. Skinner. He is an accu- 
rate observer and good writer, and his book, 
we predict, will constitute a worthy contri- 
bution to western ornithology. 
Mr. Howard H. Cleaves, formerly with 
the San Diego Natural History Museum, is 
now located at Clarksburg, West Virginia, 
where he is serving as state secretary for 
the Wild Life League of West Virginia. The 
object of this society is to spread the con- 
servation-of-game idea in a state where 
conservation is badly needed. 
It is our conviction that the best piece 
of conservation legislation proposed for a 
long time is just now pending before Con- 
gress. This is Senate bill 1452 (H. R. 
5823), which bill provides for the _ estab- 
lishment of game refuges and properly reg- 
ulated public shooting grounds. Its provi- 
sions would be carried out under the 
auspices of the United States Bureau of 
Biological Survey, and this would mean 
its administration upon a logical, scientific 
basis. We recommend that Cooper Club 
members support this bill by expressing 
their approval of it to their legislative rep- 
resentatives in Washington. The bill is 
likely to be brought up for final action 
early in the new session of Congress. 
EDITORIAL NOTES AND NEWS. 
215 
Mr. Edgar Chance, a British ornithologist, 
is the author of a late book entitled ‘‘The 
Cuckoo’s Secret” (London, Sedgwick and 
Jackson), in which the egg-laying habits of 
the European Cuckoo are described and 
illustrated from photographs in great de- 
tail. A moot point has long been as to 
whether the bird lays its egg directly into 
the nest of the victim, or deposits its egg 
elsewhere and places said egg by the way 
of its beak into the foster nest. Mr. Chance 
is so sure of the correctness of his own con- 
clusions, which are of the former import, 
that he has issued a “challenge” involving 
a wager of 500 pounds with anyone who 
wishes to set out to prove the contrary. 
Thus he hopes to stimulate further careful 
and scientific enquiry into “the cuckoo’s se- 
cret’”. And at the same time the English- 
man’s love of sport will come into play! 
Professor Lynds Jones, head of the Ecol- 
ogy department at Oberlin College, con- 
ducted a party of eleven students, via 
“Fords”, from Ohio to California the past 
summer. The enterprising members of the 
party thus had the advantage of an ideally 
practical course in geographical distribu-— 
tion. : 
COMMUNICATIONS 
THE PRESENT STATUS OF THE SUBSPECIES 
To the Editor of The Condor: 
In these days when ornithological nomen- 
clature and taxonomy seem to have become 
of more importance than the birds them- 
selves, the primary or, indeed, the sole ob- 
ject of our system is not to be lost sight 
of. A scientific name, once it is bestowed, 
is after all only an assembly of two or three 
words so grouped as to convey an idea of 
the approximate perch height of the lucky 
or unlucky recipient in the genealogical 
tree; or, to put it differently, a statement of 
the evolutionary progress made by the par- 
ticular group or individual in question, 
down to the year A. D. 1922, or whenever 
the baptism took place. Now, it seems to 
me that the fact that a certain horned 
lark’s back, or a certain fox sparrow’s bill 
is different from the backs or the bills of 
horned larks or fox sparrows occupying 
other areas is distinctly secondary to the 
fact that separate geographic situations 
have caused certain changes to take place. 
Unfortunately, our only way of expressing 
what has happened is in terms of millime- 
ters or of color, or by some other equally 
unsatisfactory designation. These means 
of describing what changes have occurred 
