48 
JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY 
garden man, sportsman, big game hunter, or just plain naturalist. Toward this 
end the help of each member and friend of the society is urged. General articles 
on mammals, recent and fossil, are solicited for publication, and authoritative 
papers on all branches of the study can be used. Papers of general interest on 
life-histories, distribution, and habits are particularly needed, in order that the 
Journal may not be overbalanced with purely technical matter. It is com- 
paratively easy to get manuscripts of systematic papers, but those members of 
the Society who are active in other branches of the study must help if the Journal 
is to be of interest to all. The departments reserved for General Notes and 
Correspondence can be made especially interesting. There are hundreds of 
good ‘^general notes’’ of value if members will take the time to write them up 
for publication. The Committee on Publications will gladly receive any sugges- 
tions for the improvement of the Journal. 
Each member is requested to endeavor to obtain new members for the Society 
and subscriptions from institutions and libraries where full sets will eventually 
be needed. Obviously there can be no ‘‘free list” for such a publication until 
it is well on its feet, and the early numbers of biological publications have a 
way of becoming in a short time excessively rare and difficult to obtain. Take 
your copy to the authorities in charge of libraries and institutions and urge 
their subscriptions, to begin with the first number. The fee for Life Member- 
ship is seventy-five dollars, and several have been elected to this class. 
Members of the Society are indebted to Mr. Ernest Thompson Seton for the 
drawing of the prong-horn antelope for the front cover decoration. Mr. Seton 
is an enthusiastic supporter of the new Society, has qualified for Life Member- 
ship, and promises some illustrated articles for future numbers of the Journal. 
He has recently been honored by La Societe nationale d’Acclimatation de France 
for his successful researches in the breeding of fur-bearing animals and has 
received the Silver Medal. The award was decided upon in 1914, but on account 
of the war the presentation was postponed. The medal bears the date of 1918, 
and is the first official French Peace Decoration received by an American since 
the signing of the armistice. The French authorities see in fur farming an 
opportunity for crippled soldiers. Mr. Seton’s experiments during the past ten 
years or more have been chiefly with minks, martens, foxes, and skunks. 
One of the first acts of the Society after organization, was to elect as an. Hon- 
orary Member Dr. J. A. Allen, of the American Museum of Natural History, 
New York. Doctor Allen was the only person elected to this class. 
The Annual Meeting of the American Society of Mammalogists for 1920 will 
be held in New York City at a date to be determined later by the Council. 
So many systematic mammalogists believe in the “test of intergradation” as 
the only criterion for the recognition of subspecies, that some interesting corre- 
spondence in the Journal should result from Doctor Merriam’s paper in this 
issue. The opinion in this matter is pretty deeply grounded in the minds of the 
majority of American workers and is no doubt in a great measure due to the 
definite stand taken by the committee which framed the original A, O. U. Code 
of Nomenclature. The remarks of this committee under Canon XI were to the 
effect that ‘ ‘the kind or quality, not the degree or quantity, of difference of one 
