Mar., 1901 I 
THE CONDOR 
51 
labeled facts to the sum of knowledge as well 
as the astronomer with his new telescopes dis- 
cover new stars and the histologist with his 
new methods of preservation find unexpected 
conditions? 
A name is called a handle to a fact; and it 
might be argued that if the handle becomes 
too slippery to grasp it loses its usefulness. There 
is another side to this however, for even a 
slippery handle may be held firmly by a 
strong or practiced hand, and if the facts be 
worth grasping, is it not more profitable to have 
trained hands for slippery handles than to 
have no handles and lose sight of significant 
facts? 
“The importance of determining with the ut- 
most exactness the geographical variations of 
birds in further ehreidating the laws of evolu- 
tion by envirouTiient’’ certainly cannot be over- 
estimated. Practically all that is known of this 
subject has been accomplished by careful sys- 
tematists, splitters possibly, who with large 
series of specimens have conscientiously worked 
out problems which in many cases could not 
possibly be ajipreciated by equally acute work- 
ers having few specimens from limited locali- 
ties. Would it then advance knowledge of this 
sirbject tcj promulgate a doctrine that characters 
not convincing in a single specimen should be 
disregarded. A few mistakes now and then 
may not be more harmful than otherwise, for 
in rectifying them a better appreciation of the 
facts is always gained and new lines of investi- 
gation are often started. From the beginning 
of systematic zoological work mistakes have 
been made, but if this were to deter workers 
from entering the field, progress would be ex- 
ceedingly slow. The mistakes which were 
made in the days of ‘lumping’ were certainly 
more egregious than any the ‘splitters’ have 
made, and it can hardly be gainsaid that of the 
two extremes, splitting is the cue which tends 
to the most careful work and the keenest a])- 
preciation of nature’s facts. If the great army 
of amateur ornithologists cannot keep pace 
with the technical systematists there is still 
nothing in the nature of the case which will 
interfere with the very important studies which 
they are making of the life histories of our 
birds. In publishing the results of his work 
the ornithologist who does not have access to 
large collections may choose to subordinate 
subspecific names by printing them in small 
ty])e or referring to them collectively under 
each species and still the value of his contribu- 
tions to distribution or life history is not nec- 
essarily impaired. If it is impossible to draw 
a mean between ‘splitters’ and ‘lumpers’, there 
ought to be room for each to work in his own 
sphere. 
The foregoing remarks are made in no con- 
troversial spirit whatever, but entirely in the 
hope that they may elicit further discussion 
of questions which must be of considerable 
concern to all who are interested or working in 
.systematic zoology. 
WlI.I'Rin) H. O.Sf.OOD. 
iras/iiiifftoi! , D. C. Fch. jS, igoi. 
ANENT POSSESvSIVE BIRD NAMES. 
not the first by ivhom the neiv is tried, 
Xor yet the last to cast the old aside.^' 
Editors of the Condor: — You will per- 
haps permit me once more, through the 
medium of your paper, to open the (juestion of 
the use of common bird names. The (|ues- 
tion which I raise this time is not of common 
names z' 5 . scientific names, but has to do with 
the changes which have been rung on some of 
our trivial names. 
The most radical change is that adopted by 
the Biological Survey and first used by them 
in North American Fauna No. 16. 
This is the dropping of the “’s” in such 
names as Townsend’s Warbler making Town- 
send Warbler. This at first sight looks pecu- 
liar and in such names as Gray Tanager and 
Brown Song Sparrow one might be led to sus- 
pect these birds of being respectively gray and 
brown, but this is not a serious objection. 
The points in fa\ or of the change are stated 
in a letter from Dr. Merriam, dated December 
22, of which the following is a jiart: 
“I would state that my practice of dro])])iug 
the “’s” in the common names of species de- 
rived from the names of persons is based on 
two things: (i) The fact that the species arc 
not in any way the property of the persons 
whose names they bear, but are merely named 
in honor of these persons; (2) The modern 
tendency in similar cases in other departments 
of science. You are aware of course that the 
National Board on Geographical Names has for 
many years abandoned the use of possessives 
in all geographical names, as Lassen Butte, 
not Lassen ’s Butte, Hudson Bay, not Hudson’s 
Bay, ami so on. Similarly the Forestry peo- 
ple in their catalogue and checklist of forest 
trees of the United .States have dropped the 
possessive, using Parry pinion, not Parry’s 
pinion, Jeffrey pine, not Jeffrey’s pine, 
Coulter pine, not Coulter’s pine, Englemann 
spruce, not Engleinann’s spruce, and .so on to 
the end of the list. Among botanists the 
same tendency is notable, and it occured to 
me that there was no particular reason why we 
should stand at the tail of the procession.’’ 
It might be added in favor of the simpler 
form of name that there is a slight saving of 
time and space. Hudson Bay is shorter and 
simpler than Hudson’s Bay and just as 
specific. The same is true of all personal 
names either botanical or zoological. I trust, 
Mr. Editors that you will find it desirable to 
adopt this idea for The Condor . 
Personally 1 take little interest in the matter, 
common names being altogether unreliable, 
but as there is considerable difference of 
ojiinion among our members, it seems well to 
bring the subject before the Club as a whole. 
There is also some variation in names of 
