A Bi-monthly Magazine
Devoted to the Study and Protection of Birds
OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE AUDUBON SOCIETIES
Edited by FRANK M. CHAPMAN
Published by THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
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| Vol. 1 | August, 1899 | No. 4 |
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SUBSCRIPTION RATES.
Price in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, twenty cents a number, one dollar a year, postage paid.
Subscriptions may be sent to the Publishers, at Englewood, New Jersey, or 66 Fifth avenue, New York City.
Price in all countries in the International Postal Union, twenty-five cents a number, one dollar and a quarter a year, postage paid. Foreign agents, Macmillan and Company, Ltd., London.
Manuscripts for publication, books, etc., for review, should be sent to the Editor at Englewood, New Jersey.
Advertisements should be sent to the Publishers at Englewood, New Jersey, or 66 Fifth avenue, New York City.
COPYRIGHTED, 1899, BY FRANK M. CHAPMAN.
Bird-Lore's Motto:
A Bird in the Bush is Worth Two in the Hand.
The advice of a prominent ornithologist to beginners to collect all the birds of a species they can get, has so long misrepresented the necessities of the case and, at the same time, brought legitimate collecting into disrepute, that every one having the interests of the science of ornithology at heart will read with great satisfaction the circular entitled 'Hints to Young Bird Students' which we reprint on [another page]. Signed by a majority of the professional ornithologists of this country, representing the institutions where ornithology is most actively studied, it may be accepted beyond thought of dispute as representing the true attitude of scientific ornithologists toward the question of collecting. And in place of the advice to kill all the birds "you can get," what do we find? Virtually a plea to abstain from all egg-collecting, to take birds only for purposes of identification, and a statement that the student "will learn more of value by a study of the living bird than by collecting skins."
To our mind, the importance of this circular cannot be over-rated. It marks an epoch in the history of North American ornithology. The future ornithologist is not to be a mere hoarder of birds' skins, but a student of bird-life whose researches, we predict, will prove an invaluable aid in the solution of that most difficult and most important of all biologic problems, the relation of animals to their environment.