To project, a dangerous, but fun activity, on Johnston's thoughts:
he approached this looking for two species; he took some
measurements, found no differences; then
discovered that maybe there was a distinctive vocalization that could
be attributed only to Northwestern Crows; went up to Snoqualmie
Pass to test it out on the American Crows up there; found the
same call there; said "Oh, ____;" and wrote up what he had assuming
only one species.

The weakness in Johnston's study, as I can now see from Ian's post
(Thanks!),
is that Johnston never followed up on the sonogram issue. Maybe there
is a distinctive difference? There appears to be, and if that is
true then the burden of proof is back on the lumpers. SIZE MAY BE
UNIMPORTANT! It should be easy to at least map
out the distribution of crows that produce the distinctive calls.

--Jerry <tangren at wsu.edu>

> -----Original Message-----
> From: TWEETERS-owner at u.washington.edu
> [mailto:TWEETERS-owner at u.washington.edu]On Behalf Of Eugene Hunn
> Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 1999 8:50 PM
> To: pwsmith at techline.com
> Cc: tweeters at u.washington.edu
> Subject: RE: Crows
>
>
> Bill,
>
> I don't recall the history quite that way. I do recall the Dawson heaped
> scorn upon the idea that it was a separate species in his 1908 Birds of
> Washington. I believe it was first split in the 1910 AOU checklist (I
> guessing somewhat on the dates, but I believe they are approximately
> correct). I believe it stayed split thereafter. Those arguing for two
> species seemed to equate it with the Fish Crow situation on the
> east coast,
> however, the geological histories are totally at odds with that.
> Furthermore, I challenge anyone to define where the boundary
> between the two
> exists. Are are they presumed to broadly overlap? If so, I
> challenge anyone
> to sort them out in the field in the Puget Sound region. There is no "no
> crow's land" isolating them either on the outer coast nor in Puget Sound,
> nor are the east side populations isolated since the interstate
> corridor is
> loaded with crows all the way up and over. I have on occasion
> picked up dead
> crows in Seattle and the were right in the middle on all measurements. If
> Johnston's study is so flawed, what pray tell are those flaws?
>
> Gene Hunn.
>