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82 THE CONDOR Vol. XIII work of such extremists as may be seen for instance on page 23 of The Auk, vol. xvL I desire to protest. Here the subspecific characters of a very questionable subspecies of [-fylocichla are given in this way. "C?IARS. suBsv.--f-fylocichla I-f. u. uslulatae similis, sed hypochondriis et pattibus superioribus pallidio?bus ac minus rufescentibus." Alas! poor English, to the writer, evidently seemed in- adequate to explain these intricate differences, so it became necessary to resort to a language worse than foreign. Dr. Samuel Johnson has said, speaking of certain writings of Addison in Latin, that "when matter is low or scanty, a dead language, in which nothing is mean because ubthing is familiar, affords great conveniences, and, by the sonorous magnificence of Roman syllables, the writer conceals penury of thought often from the reader and often from himself." There are other in- stances, I think, beside certain works of Addison in Latin, to which this is also applicable. One of our foremost ornithologists has sought to differentiate scientific and popular.ornithology by the separation of the study of dead birds from live ones, and at first glance this may perhaps seem a very pleasant arrangement. In the museum the corpse is measured, dissected., its every wing and tail feather counted, and every curve of its bill or claw, and often trivial differences in coloration noted. Why do not these same exact methods prevail in the field ? The answer in my opinion is because the work of the bird anatomists, following as it does certain set and well defined lines is by far the s?mpler. If field-work, which they are pleased toeall "popular" ornithology, is so simple why can not some of these closet naturalists spare'a few hours in the field and settle some of the little problems which puzzle us poor field ornithologists, such as comparative velocity of bird- flights, migration, instinct, susceptibility to the charm of certain snakes, the cause of the heavy proportion of infertile eggs in certain species, decoy nests, the pos- sible use of bird sentinels in nesting time, the motionless flight of the gull with and against the wind, the cause of tender shelled eggs, the reason for spotted eggs when not explainable by the theory of 'protective coloration, etc., etc. I believe much work in the field and in the museum, as well, must be done before these problems are solved; yet certain writers contend that articles dealing with such sub- jects are necessarily "popular." Surely they are! Because the live bird is, and always will be, more interesting than a dead bird; but what folly to insist that the study of one is more scientific than the other! There are certain non-essential things not directly connected with the study of bird life, that can,' I think, be eliminated in the preparation of a manuscript with- out the latter losing any of its scientific value. For instance, in describing the nest of a killdeer as merely a small collection of even-sized pebbles, if one should enlarge and give the measurements, shape and kind of each pebble, would such informafiou be of any particular value ? Yet, on the other hand while sometimes equally irrele- vant information is given, certain seemingly unimportant details are passed un- noticed. An instance of this latter sort, liable perhaps to have been overlooked if it had not been so frequent, was the finding at Lake Valley last June (1910), all told, five nests of the House Finch (Carpodacus mexicanus frontalis) which were in close proximity to those of the Western Robin (Planesticus mig?ratorius propin- quus). Perhaps these cases were simply the result of accident. The nests of the House.Finch in every instance were the last built, but this fact proves little as this is in accordance with the usual nesting dates of the two species in the valley. In a region overrun with chipmunks, whose depredations on bird life are incalculable, a desire on the part of the House Finch to gain protection by propinquity to the home of a larger and more combative bird is certainly an interesting trait and worthy of