San Clemente Wren

"Paler, grayer above and on flanks; with under tail coverts less heavily barred than San Diego Wren."

Raised to specific rank by grace of the above sentence! Twenty years ago Dr. Dwight remarked: "To the game of names no penalties are attached and the rules are so complicated that few people can tell if one plays fair or not, and unless this amusement is taken bodily out of the hands of experts no permanent stability is to be expected. If names could be minted like coins, and run thru the same machine we should soon have stable nomenclature. The modern tendency is to name a difference first and explain it afterward."

This tendency is still evident especially on the Pacific coast where the craze has reached the point of naming every collector's victim if its bill or toe is 1-32 naming every collector's victim if its bill or toe is 1-32 of an inch longer! The egotism which prompts this mania to see his name tacked to a birdskin takes Ornithology from Science into the ridiculous.