The Canadian field-naturalist (1996) (20332486939)

Title: The Canadian field-naturalist
Identifier: canadianfieldnat110otta (find matches)
Year: 1919 (1910s)
Authors: Ottawa Field-Naturalists' Club
Subjects:
Publisher: Ottawa, Ottawa Field-Naturalists' Club
Contributing Library: Harvard University, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Ernst Mayr Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Harvard University, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Ernst Mayr Library



Text Appearing Before Image:
1996 Cranmer-Byng: A Life with Birds 117
Text Appearing After Image:
Field camp, Eastend, Saskatchewan, 1921. P. A. Tavemer, Alan Sampson, and H. M. Laing. (Reproduced cour- tesy of the Canadian Museum of Nature, number 53435.) expressed it, "... too many are guided by preconcep- tions, and refuse to look facts in the face".^^ Tavemer was too frank to pretend to notice a nuance of colour when he was sure that he could not. In his continuing disagreement with Brooks over when to create a subspecies and when not Taverner some- times wrote that he could not see the colour differ- ences that Brooks declared existed. This exasperated Brooks so much that on one occasion he wrote blunt- ly, "No good talking to you of color distinctions. I really believe you are slightly color blind".^^ Tavemer argued that he was not, and wrote, "I do not think I am color blind. Nobody ever admitted such a thing of course, but I have tested myself against others and cannot find any evidence of it." In the same letter he complained that they may have misunderstood each other. "I may not always write perfectly clearly but I do not think you read any too carefully. At least you misunderstand a number of things I have said."^" Early in 1922 Taverner wrote a letter to the lead- ing systematics research workers of the AOU enclos- ing a statement protesting against what he consid- ered was the debasing of the concept of genus in ornithology by the proliferation of subgenera. He claimed that the tendency towards the finer division of the genus threatened to complicate nomenclature and taxonomy until each group in a genus became the private preserve of specialists in that group. He asked recipients of the statement to read it carefully, and return it with their opinion.^' Taverner must have known that he was "sticking his neck out" reck- lessly. He might as well have saved himself the trou- ble, but that was not his nature. By the end of the year he had received only a small number of signa- tures in support of the statement. What Taverner hoped would be a strong protest to the Committee on Nomenclature of the AOU was, in fact, a fizzle and left Tavemer looking a little quixotic. Brooks, who was at Berkeley, California, in December 1922 wrote that Tavemer was not satisfied with trying to limit the number of subspecies. Now he wanted to limit the genera. He said that Grinnell, Director of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of Califomia, and Swarth had discussed the matter with him, and two points struck them. One was that Tavemer had only collected 14 signatures out of a total of sixty fellows, and only two were Canadians. The Washington section of the AOU, Brooks said, could start a counter petition and get more signatures than he had for his. Secondly, this multiplying of the genera was nothing new. During the past 100 years