THE CONDOR VOL. XI THE CONDOg, .An Illustrated l?lagazine of Western Ornithology' Pnblisht Bi-Monthly by the Cooper Ornitholn$i- cal Club of California. JOSEPH GRINNELL. Editor. - Berkeley. C?.I. J. EUGENE LAW. Business M?,nager. Hollywood. Cal. W. LEE CHAMBEKS. Businees-*Manager. Santa Monico., Cal. WILLIAM L. FINLEY } ROBERT B. ROCKWELL Aesociu. te Editors Hollywood, Califernia: Publisht July 17, 1909 SUDSClI, IPTIOIq R2kTES One Dollar and Fifty Cents per Year in tile United States, Mexico, and U. S. Colonies, payable ia advance. Thirty Cents the .qugle copy. One Dollar and Seventy-five Cema per Year in all otl?er countries in the international Postal UlliOll. Claims for missin? or imperfect numbers should be made within thirty days of date ot issue. Subscriptions and Exchanges should be seut to the Business Manager. M?nuscripts for publication. and Books and Pekpera for review shOtlid be setit to the Adverlising Rates ou application. EDITORIAI, NOTES AND NEWS Pacific Coast Avifauna no. 5 (Bibliography of California Ornithology) and no. 6 (Ten- year Index to THE CONDOR) have been mailed free to Honorary Members of the Cooper Club and to all Active Members nol in arrears for dues. If yon have failed to receive yourcopies it may mean a mistake on the part of the man- agenteat, or it may mean that you haven't paid up your 1909 dates! Our Business Managers announce that they will not send out either THE CONDOR or Avifauna to delinquent mem- bers. Nor will delinquent suscribers receive this utagazine longer than one issue beyond the expiration of their subscriptions. This seems a drastic measure, but promlSt payntents are essential to o?r keeping above water, financially. As bearing on a particular case we have in mind, where in a local list a species is publisht as "undoubtedly' occurring" in the region under consideration, tho actual records are yet lacking, we quote the following appropriate remarks made twenty-five years ago by Stejneger (_du? I, October 1884, p. 359): "Conjectures as to distribution are always dangerous. The next step is, that an uncriti- cal author takes up the statentent as an undoubted fact, the assertion goes into other works, and future writers will have the greatest difficulty in tracing it back to its original source. There is no need of extending the geographical range of a species before actual facts are at hand." A distinctly retrograde step is that which we understand the A. O. U. Committee has just taken: to retain the apostrophe and "s" in common possessives. This is acta matter gov- erned by any code of nontenclature, and the committee is clearly open to the grave charge of arbitrarily utaking the ruling (to be followed in the forth coating Check-list of North Anteri- can Birds) contrary to a concensus of opinion among ornithologists. It will be recalled that we put this very point to a vote of CONDOR readers (which inclmle all ornithologists in America), and it resulted mtequivocally{in the support of our castoat to discard the useless "'s." Any lay bird stmlent is just as well qualified to pass jmlgment upon convenience in vernacular names as any roeuther of the A. O. U. Committee, perhaps better; aml the latter shouhl keep in mind the preferences of the majority when preparing the Check-List which must serve as ot?r guide to bird nanms for probably the next decade. We regret that certain bird students in Colo- rado have gone so far in their differences of opinion as to bring in the personal element. In other words, what was originally ornitho- logical has gradually revelopt into a personal quarrel without general interest, aml we have been compelled to refuse space for the latest "comnmnication." We helieve large good ntay resttit front argumentative discussions, and all such, relating to ornithology, we are glad to publish. But when a controversy, such as the one referred to, becomes merely personal, a magazine with the purposes of THE CONDOR is not the place for its exploitation (excepting as advertising, at regular rates!). The Hon. Dean C. Worcester, Secretary of the Interior for the Phillipine Islands, deliv- ered two popular lectures on birds before the Philippine Teachers' Assembly for 1909. This Assembly is hehl, during April and May, at B.qguio, Province of Benguet, the stunruer resort of the Islands. Mr. Richard C. Mc- Gregor, assistant in the Bureau of Science, Manila, was an instructor at the Assembly, and gave a course in the identification of birds, and the preparation of specimens. XVord cotties from Harry S. Swarth, that his explorations in the archipelago of south- eastern Alaska are bringing results of unusual interest. Three species of birds have been found entirely new to the avifauna of Alaska; and several hitherto unvisited islands have been fouml to harbor peculiar associations of bird-life not ntet with previously. Wilfred H. Osgood, for nearly twelve years identified with the intportant work of the Biological Survey, has withdrawn from that institution, to accept the position of Assistant Curator of Mammalogy and Ornithology at the Field Museum, Chicago. Itis new duties be- gan July 1st.
