SACLC: after seeing how out-dated the classification of the Ardeidae was
in the Howard-Moore draft, rather than inundate you with a bunch of little
proposals that I assume would be non-controversial and that will almost
certainly be changed on next Howard-Moore draft anyway (e.g., changing
Egretta alba to Ardea alba; Louisiana Heron to Tricolored Heron; changing
American Wood Ibis to Wood Stork, etc.), I propose the following:

Dump the H-M baseline classification and use AOU '98 instead for
Ciconiiformes. AOU '98 incorporates recent data from Sheldon and
others. We can always change that if you don't like it.

Vote "YES" to start with AOU '98, "NO" to start with Howard-Moore.

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SACLC: note: on previous message concerning AOU Ciconiiformes, I did not
mention Cathartidae, treated as a family of that order by AOU '98.
There is enough lingering controversy that I think we should restrict
current vote to "traditional" Ciconiiformes, without Cathartidae --
inlcusion of the latter is a separate issue (for which I think we should
solicit comments from outside the Committee, given that most of our
research interests do not involve higher-level systematics).

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Van Remsen (26 Oct. 2000)