^ 3 v -=1^. 10.7,4 
Lancaster, Mass. 
May 20th, 1902. 
My dear Mr.Howe; 
If I remember rightly (my memoranda are in Cam¬ 
bridge) I found on looking through some ten or twelve trays of the cans 
of the Bigelow Collection errors of identification affecting sixteen 
species or subspecies (most of them full species) and upwards of thirty 
or forty specimens. It is quite true, as you have evidently been in¬ 
formed, that a large proportion of the mistakes which I noticed occurred 
among the Flycatchers but most of those wrongly named by you were typi¬ 
cal specimens of species which may J»e readily and certainly identified 
while some of them were common eastern birds which even amateur orni¬ 
thologists are accustomed to recognize at a glance. In one instance I 
believe (here again I write without consulting my notes) you separated 
a number of closely similar adult breeding birds of the same species and 
from the same locality into two species, and in another, put the same 
name on specimens representing three distinct species and one subspecies 
I must confess that this condition of affairs surprised me greatly. 
Occasional slips, due to inadvertence or inexperience, were, of course, 
to be expected on your part and would, I need hardly say, have been 
quietly corrected by me without mention to anyone else; but under the 
circumstances I felt it to be my plain duty to report the facts at once 
to Dr.Woodworth, who in turn communicated them to Mrs. Bigelow. The 
latter has since written me that she does not wish you to do any more 
work on the collection until her son's return and that she has notified 
