THE AUK 
A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY 
PUBLISHED BY 
THE AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGISTS’ UNION 
ADDRESS CARE OF 
ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES 
LOGAN SQUARE, PHILADELPHIA 
oem Oe 
The A. O. U. Committee on Classification and nomenclature 
of N. A. Birds being at present without officers the President has ap- 
pointed me acting chairman, with the idea of deciding upon some plan 
to cover the future activities of the Committee. 
WITMER STONE, Sc. D., EDITOR 
The cases before our Committee are of two kinds--(a) no- 
menclatural: (b) ornithological. 
(a) The former are easily disposed of by correspondence among the 
mambers of the sub-committee and require no further consideration, ac- 
tion being governed by a definite Code of rules. 
(b) The ornithological questions are very much more difficult of 
settlement owing to the fact that most of them depend upon personal 
opinion. Formerly material mainly in the ©. 5. National Museum, was 
studied by the Committee in session, and a vote taken as to the valid- 
ity or rank of each proposed form. For many reasons a continuance of 
this policy seems impracticable, viz: 
(1) The fineness of the lines separating recently proposed sub- 
species makes it impossible to decide in a few minutes a case that has 
originally taken days of study. No one cares to vote hastily upon such 
cases. 
(2) Adequate material is often lacking and action is indefinitely 
postponed. 
(3) The Committee becomes tired out and cannot give continuous 
critical attention to case after case for several consecutive days. 
(4) The plan of alloting cases to individuals for study prior 
to the meeting has proved impracticable. Members, as a rule, have not 
the time for the preliminary study and no reports are made. 
(5) It is an imposition on the authorities of the National Museum 
to expect them to sort out and replace hundreds of specimens most of 
which the Committee fails to make definite use of. 
After talking over the matter informally with several members 
of the Committee I venture to suggest the following plan of action, 
which they heartily endorse. 
Let the Committee publish a yearly report consisting of a 
list of proposed additions or alterations to the Check-List; inviting 
