1^2 
THE CONDOR 
I Vol. Ill 
COMMUNICATIONS. 
THE DECISIONS IN THE TENTH SUP- 
PLEMENT. 
Editors The Condor: — 
The Tenth Supplement to the A. O. U. 
Check-List published in the July Auk contains 
many surprises to our western ornithologists in 
the wholesale manner in which carefully 
worked out species and subspecies hav^e been 
relegated to obscurity. If it were the policy of 
the Committee to discourage the creation of 
trinomials entirely our workers might well re- 
ceive its decision with good grace, but when it 
accepts a subspecies like PipHo fuscus carolcs, 
whose invalidity had already been pointed out 
by’ its describer, we can only’ conchrde that our 
judges sit too far away to fully appreciate the 
conditions which surround the western worker. 
Our eastern friends would not consider it 
strange if climatic conditions and other influ- 
ences produced two subspecies in a country 
stretching between New York and Florida. One 
could readily’ grasp the idea that a Ceothlypis 
feeding and breeding in Florida might differ 
from one feedingand breeding in good old New 
England. Now as a matter of fact we have a 
wider range of conditions out here in Califor- 
nia, and that in some cases in a section of coun- 
try easily covered on an ordinary map by a 
twenty -five cent piece. Take for instance the 
San Joaquin valley where there are 300 days 
of.sunshine and a yearly rainfall of only eight 
inches, with a semi-arid condition existing 
most of the year. Compare this with the 
humid coast side of the range but a compara- 
tively short distance away with 40 inches of 
rainfall and only 100 days of sunshine, pro- 
ducing a damp, foggy climate. 
When it has been shown that a 3 Ielospiza on 
the humid coast side of the range differs ma- 
terially in many’ respects: that it is only’ found 
in a given area in the breeding season, for it 
has never been taken elsewhere at that time; 
that a partial migration occurs when in the fall 
and winter it scatters more or less, at which 
times it is taken mingled with other forms of 
the same genus, but always returning to breed 
in its chosen habitat; when all these facts have 
been carefully shown, one feels that there is 
some basis for the claim that it deserves to be 
recognized as a subspecies. 
It is to be regretted that the very carefully 
prepared life zone and faunal area maps of 
California compiled and in use by several Cali- 
fornia workers have not been published for the 
benefit of those who are not in a position to re- 
alize the enormous range of conditions which 
exist in California owing to differences of ele- 
vation, or proximity to ocean influences. For- 
tunately our few systematists who are working 
out these problems appreciate these difficulties 
and are prepared to accept with good grace the 
decision of the Committee, knowing that it is 
only a question of time when these facts will 
be made apparent to all. 
One thing however is certain, and that is 
our western workers have a double task in that 
they not only must point out a new species or 
subspecies, but they must also work out its 
whole life history, migration etc., as influenced 
by the peculiar topography of California, before 
they can hope for a ready' recognition of their 
claims. In other words they are confronted 
by the necessity of a strong educational crusade 
along the lines noted above. Meanw'hile let us 
not exhaust our stock of patience but rather let 
us hang out the sign, that in early California 
days, ornamented certain thriving places of 
business, when the knowledge of our state as a 
whole was as crude as is our present knowledge 
of its birds, — “Don’t shoot the fiddler; he’s 
doing the best he can . F. S. Daggett. 
Pasadena, Cal., Sept. /, igoi. 
A DEFENSE OF BIRD HORIZONS. 
Editor The Condor: — 
My attention has recently been called to a 
review and criticism of Wilson Bulletin No. 
33, which appeared in the March-April Condor. 
While I entirely sympathize with the critic in 
his efforts to guard the avifauna of his home 
region against misrepresentation, I cannot rid 
myself of the impression that the purpose of 
‘ A Summer Reconnoissance In The West’’ has 
been largely misconceived in his review. 
The very word ‘reconnoissance’ was chosen 
to indicate the rapid and necessarily incom- 
plete nature of the work. It w’ould have been 
presumptuous on cur part if we had thought 
to vie in either accuracy or completeness with 
carefully prepared local lists. Indeed Mr. 
Jones expressly says in ^his introduction: “In 
rapid work of this kind there must be a con- 
siderable margin of error.’’ Some fecv of our 
identifications were based entirely’ upon geo- 
graphical considerations. It is not possible, for 
instance, to tell the difference, in the field, be- 
tween a .Samuel and a Herrmann Song Sparrow’, 
By those who do not subscribe to the senti- 
ment that the only good bird is a dead bird, 
recourse must be had to authorities on distri- 
bution; and these are often meager or deficient. 
In view therefore of the manifest limitations of 
our chosen work we must modestly disclaim 
any intention of clashing with the local divin- 
ities in matters of expert identification. But 
after all, the list of errors which is accredited 
to my colleague in the article under considera- 
tion is easily’ twice too large. 
A word remains, perhaps, to be said in justi- 
fication of the task as we conceived it. With- 
out any intention of publishing authoritative 
“local lists’’ it nevertheless seemed worth 
