Volume III, number 3, of "The Murrelet", mimeographed "Official Bulletin of the Pacific Northwest Bird and Mammal Club", reached us November 10. The editor, Mr. F. S. Hall of the Washington State Museum, Seattle, is to be congratulated upon the success of his efforts to produce a creditable journal with small resources. This issue contains several articles and notes on birds, valuable at least from a local standpoint, under the authorship of J. Hooper Bowles, S. F. Rathbun, Kenneth Racey, Walter F. Burton, C. de B. Green, E. A. Kitchin, and others.
The Chicago meeting of the American Ornithologists' Union, held October 23 to 26, was well attended. More than forty papers were read. Elections included Dr. Arthur A. Allen to the class of Fellows, and D. R. Dickey, A. O. Gross, W. Huber, T. I. Storer and J. T. Zimmer to the class of Members.
Mr. M. P. Skinner, Yellowstone Park, Wyoming, is contemplating early publicatio of his book on the "birds of Yellowsone". Readers of The Condor are already familiar with the type of literature produced by Mr. Skinner. He is an accurate observer and good writer, and his book, we predict, will constitute a worthy contribution to western ornithology.
Mr. Howard H. Cleaves, formerly with the San Diego Natural History Museum, is now located at Clarksburg, West Virginia, where he is serving as state secretary for the Wild Life League of West Virginia. The object of this society is to spread the conservation-of-game idea in a state where conservation is badly needed.
It is our conviction that the best piece of conservation legislation proposed for a long time is just now pending before Congress. This is Senate bill 1452 (H. R. 5823), which bill provides for the establishment of game refuges and properly regulated public shooting grounds. Its provisions would be carried out under the auspices of the United States Bureau of Biological Survey, and this would mean its administration upon a logical, scientific basis. We recommend that Cooper Club members support this bill by expressing their approval of it to their legislative representatives in Washington. The bill is likely to be brought up for flnal action early in the new session of Congress.
Mr. Edgar Chance, a British ornithologist, is the author of a late book entitled "The Cuckoo's Secret" (London, Sedgwick and Jackson), in which the egg-laying habits of the European Cuckoo are described and illustrated from photographs in great detail. A moot point has long been as to whether the bird lays its egg directly into the nest of the victim, or deposits its egg elsewhere and places said egg by the way of its beak into the foster nest. Mr. Chance is so sure of the correctness of his own conclusions, which are of the former import, that he has issued a "challenge" involving a wager of 500 pounds with anyone who wishes to set out to prove the contrary. Thus he hopes to stimulate further careful and scientific enquiry into "the cuckoo's secret". And at the same time the Englishman's love of sport will come into play!
Professor Lynds Jones, head of the Ecology department at Oberlin College, conducted a party of eleven students, via "Fords", from Ohio to California the past summer. The enterprising members of the party thus had the advantage of a course in geographical distribution.
COMMUNICATIONS
THE PRESENT STATUS OF THE SUBSPECIES
To the Editor of The Condor:
In these days when ornithological nomenclature and taxonomy seem to have become of more importance than the birds themselves, the primary or, indeed, the sole object of our system is not to be lost sight of. A scientific name, once it is bestowed, is after all only an assembly of two or three words so grouped as to convey an idea of the approximate perch height of the lucky or unlucky recipient in the genealogical tree; or, to put it differently, a statement of the evolutionary progress made by the particular group or individual in question, down to the year A. D. 1922, or whenever the baptism took place. Now, it seems to me that the fact that a certain horned lark's back, or a certain fox sparrow's bill is different from the backs or the bills of horned larks or fox sparrows occupying other areas is distinctly secondary to the fact that separate geographic situations have caused certain changes to take place. Unfortunately, our only way of expressing what has happened is in terms of millimeters or of color, or by some other equally unsatisfactory designation. These means of describing what changes have occurred
