24 
THE CONDOR 
I VOL. V 
correspondeince: 
To THE Editor of The Condor: 
111 a review of iiiy paper on Alaskan birds, published in your issue for November-Decem- 
ber, 1902, it appears that in my published writings I have not made clear my position in regard to 
the desirability of recognizing geographical races of birds in nomenclature and I beg of you space 
in which to reply to your reviewer’s claim that my “scientific” work is not in harmony with my 
views expressed in another connection. 
My protest against the description of geographical races is not indiscriminate. It is directed 
toward the large amount of unsound work of this kind which has done so much to bring system- 
atic ornithology into disrepute among those who cannot distinguish between the good and the 
bad. I It is not only from this, and, from what may be termed the popular point of view, that 
these attempts to burden our nomenclature with baseless names are to be deprecated. There are 
sound scientific reasons against these efforts to name definitely the indefinite. They are admir- 
ablv expressed by Mr. Joseph Grinnell in your issue for July-. 4 .ugust, 1902, page 96; Mr. Orinnell 
in questioning Mr. Oberholser’s reference of a horned lark from Stockton, Cal., to 
writes; “Now may not this individual, showing an aggregate of characters nearest leucolcema^ 
be not simply an individual extreme of, say, nierrilli\ which occurs in numbers in the same local- 
itv at the same season? ... Is there not danger of denoting such extreme individuals by the 
names of similarly looking subspecies when their real affinities are not with those races at all? It 
is verv evident that mistakes of this kind will lead to wrong deductions in regard to migratory 
movements, and distribution in general, which is after all where the chief value of distinguishing 
geograpical races comes in.” 
This is well put and the same argument could be used in many cases to show that in such im- 
portant phases of bird study as migration and winter distribution excessive subdivision is positive- 
ly prejudicial to accurate work. 
The question who shall decide what birds are “worth the naming” has only one answer; the 
American Ornithologists’ Union's Committee on Classification and Nomenclature is the court in 
which a bird’s claims to recognition by name are to be established. Composed of seven expert 
ornithologists, representing varying points of view, no better judicial body can be obtained. Let 
us see, then, what has been this Committee’s attitude toward the systematic work of the past six- 
teen years. 
. 4 t the twentieth Congress of the .\merican Ornithologists’ Union, held in Washington, D. C., 
in November last, Ur. J. A. Allen presented a paper on this subject entitled ‘The A. O. U. Check 
Ljgt Its Historv and Its Future, ’2 in which it was shown that only 52 per cent of the proposed 
modifications in the “Check List” have been endorsed by the . 4 . O. U. Committee on Classifica- 
tions and Nomenclature. Dr. Allen adds; “If there had been no Committee to which these 500 or 
more questions could have been referred for a formal verdict it is perhaps easier to imagine than to 
describe what would have been the condition of the nomenclature of North American birds in 1902.” 
Thus it appears that the protest against much of the systematic work of today comes not only 
from “specimen labelers and popular writers,” as my reviewer tells us, but from the representative, 
scientific ornithologists composing the O. U.’s Committee on Classification and Nomenclature 
jj verv practical kind of protest which, as Dr. Allen well states ( 1 . c.), has saved us from“chaos.” 
Yours respectfully, 
Fr.\nk M. Ch.cpm.\n. 
American Museum of Natural History, New York City, Dec. 19, 1902. 
Editor of The Condor; 
I note that a correspondent in the November-December Condor, “raises a voice of pro- 
test” against what appears to him to be a “cruel indifference” to or a lack of sympathy with bird 
life. The present writer, without raising his voice to any unpleasant inflection, would like to 
whisper a few mild suggestions to the Pasadenan. 
Mv friend, convictions are fine things to have, and we are honored in their possession. But 
it is usuallv best to keep them, for the disseminators of convictions may do a lot of good — or 
otherwise. I fear in the present instance, however praiseworthy your intentions, it was — other- 
wise. 
Larger men than you and I, my this question and left no im- 
jiression on the breezes which blow where the birds still sing over their graves. There is good 
and bad in it, and it will take more than plenty of ink and a pen to settle the question to the sat- 
1 Cf. Science, 1901, p. 316; 1902, p. 229. 
2 Sec The Auk, Jan. 1903. pp. 1-9. 
