596 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. XL1I 



briefly the reasons for not accepting certain of the pro- 

 posed nomenclatnral changes and additions. While, its 

 authority is, of course, not final, except as regards the 

 A. 0. U. Check-List, it can throw the weight of its in- 

 fluence against innovations that in its judgment are detri- 

 mental to the best interests of the science. It un- 

 doubtedly acts as a powerful deterrent upon ill-considered 

 work, and the general acceptance of its decisions by 

 amateurs and laymen tends to the conservation, in this 

 country at least, of a standard and uniform nomenclature 

 for North American ornithology. It is a mild form of 

 censorship— far less radical and drastic than that pro- 

 posed by some of the botanists at their recent Chicago 

 meeting. 



As already said, the conditions in regard to the nomen- 

 clature of minor forms which confront botanists are very 

 different from those met with in the study of terrestrial 

 vertebrates. There is no group in mammals, birds or 

 reptiles comparable in respect to the number, character, 

 and association of its minor forms with Crataegus, Eubus, 

 Aster, Sisyrinchium and numerous other botanical 

 genera, where several recognizable morphologic forms 

 occur in intimate geographic association. In the verte- 

 brate classes named, the forms recognized in nomencla- 

 ture that occupy the same area are always sharply sepa- 

 rated; there is never a question of specific or even sub- 

 specific identity, except in the case of migratory birds, 

 where several different geographic subspecies may be 

 found associated in migration, or during the non-breeding 

 season, in districts remote from their respective breeding 

 ranges. Questions of identification arise, not between 

 locally associated forms, but in reference to whether in- 

 dividuals from intermediate areas are referable to one 

 or the other of the several subspecies that occur typically 

 only in adjoining physiographic (faunal) areas. An ap- 

 parent exception is afforded by the red crossbills (Loxia 

 curvirostra group), where a wide range of so-called in- 

 dividual variation is met with, affecting the general size, 



