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 Mar., 1909 FROM FIELD AND STUDY 67 Th atmospheric dryness mkes the feathers more brittle an hence hastens the disintegration jroeess resulting from attrition. The more intense and long-continued snnlight bleaches the colors at a greater rate.. The moral again, repeated here for the sake of emphasis, is that the true color characters of birds must be sought in freshly acquired plumages, and not in the "breeding dress" (often in a dilapidated condition) as has been so nniversally insisted upon. The above contention that oberholseri is not after all a phylogenetic race, is not at all an argument against the recognition of minute differences in nomenclature, as would apparently be urged by Linton (of. CoNI)OR X, July 1908, p. 181; and Kaeding, idem, XI, January 1909, p. 32), but rather points toward the need for greater care in discriminating subspecies.--J. GRINNELL, University of California, Berkeley, California. The Early Western Surveys.--In Mr. Rockwell's interesting paper on "The History of Colorado Ornithology," iu the January-February number of TH CONDOR there are several erro- neous citations, which, coupled with a number of similar errors recently appearing in scientific publications, lead to the belief that a general account of several of the western surveys and their publications may be timely. For those who are familiar with the publications referred to, cita- tions are not necessary, and if the references are not correct they are worse than useless to those for whom they are intended. In the paper just referred to, Coues' "Birds of the Northwest" is attributed to the Bulletins of the United States Geological Survey, instead of to the Miscellaneous publications of the "Hayden Survey" of the Territories; and Henshaw's reports are attributed to the same survey, instead of to the "Wheeler Survey" of the region west of the one hundredth meridian. Ridg- way's report on the Maxwell collection was first lublisht, so far as I am able to learn, in 1879, iu Mary DartUs {now Mrs. Thompson) "On the Plains and Among the Peaks," instead of iu 1877 as Mr. Rockwell has it. Afterward, according to Professor Cooke, it appeared in 1887 in "Field and Forest," a publication not now accessible to me. Either Mr. Rockwell's date is an error or both Professor Cooke and I have overlooked the earlier publication. However, that is of minor importance. The im2ortant item is the confusion of entirely distinct surveys. The United States Geological and 'Geographical Survey. of the Territories, under Dr. F. V. Hayden, began operations in 1867 and ceased field work in 1878, tho some of its publications did not appear until several years later. Its principal publications are contained in four distiuct series, numbered separately, i.e., Bulletins, Annual Reports, Monographs or Final Reports, and Miscellaneous Publications, in addition to some unclassified papers.' Each series contains papers on both fossil and recent plants and animals, and should be carefully distinguisht to avoid misleading the reader who is not thoroly familiar with them. For instance, Cones' "Birds of the Northwest" cannot be found in the Bulletin of the Hayden Survey, but is No. 3 of Miscellaneous Publications, and is not in the United States Geological Survey publications at all, altho on the title page the words "and Geographical" are omitted, the words "of the Territo- tories," which at once distinguish it from the present survey, being retained. The United States Geographical [Explorations and] Surveys West of the One Hundredth Meridian (title varying somewhat on different publications), under Lieut. Geo. M. Wheeler, was in the field from 1869 to 1884, its chief publications being Annual Reports, Maps, and seven large quarto Final Reports or Monographs, of which Vol. V is of most importan.ce in the matter of recent zoology and contains Henshaw's reports hereinbefore referred to. The United States Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel, under Clarence King, was in the field from 1871 to 1878 inclusive, its chic[ publications being an Atlas, Annual Reports, and several large quarto Final Reports or Monographs, about half of Vol. IV being devoted to ornithology. The United States Geographical aud Geological Survey of the Kocky Mountain Kegion, under J. W. Powell, publisht quite a number of special volumes from 1877 to 1880, not numbered in a serial way, such as the "Geology of the Henry Mountains," all of them being confined to geography in its limited sense, geology, paleontology and ethnology. The publicatious, to- gether with a number of reports by Powell before the orgauization of the Rocky Mountain Region Survey, are briefly referred to as the Powell Survey Reports. The foregoing were all western surveys, ttayden and Powell reporting to the Secretary of the Interior, Wheeler and King reporting to the Secretary of War, in accordance with the statutes under which they operated, and were entirely distinct surveys, tho their work to some extent overlapt. In 1879 the present United States Geological Survey, under the Interior De- partment, began operations; some of the other organizations at once, and all eventually ceasing field work. &t the .present time nearl 7 all of the strictly g. eolog. ical and paleontological work