the Check List and each member then taking his own underscored 
Check L£st and deciding with his own conscience which of the 2000 
or so species he really knows well enough to make field notes upon; 
then each member to make conscientious notes all through the slimmer 
wherever he goes of the relative abundance or absence from differ¬ 
ent towns or areas of the species he can vouch for; these notes to 
be turned in at the end of the year to the committee for tabulation, 
along with such other records as the Club Herbarium and local notes, 
as a basis for the definition of areas. 
Naturally such work will be of diverse value, your notes or 
mine being much fuller than those of several of the lay members who 
would not hold themselves responsible for more than a hundred or 
two familiar species. I already have a good deal of this sort of 
work started but it seemed as if such work more formally undertaken 
by the Club, and with everybody who has a real interest taking part, 
a more direct progress would be made and the members in their field 
work would be doing something more worth while than collecting one 
sheet from each state, or other similar artificial areas. 
I am, naturally ready to give all the aid I can to any com¬ 
mittee that undertakes the formulation of the scheme, and in fact, 
an informal committee to go over the proposition was appointed Fri¬ 
day night. This committee met yesterday afternoon and laid out a 
general plan, such as I have indicated, and named for a committee 
to engineer the scheme, Mr. C. H. Knowlton, as chairman, Mr, Ripley 
and yourself. I am writing the other two to know if they would be 
willing to serve on such a committee to be ratified at the next 
