COPYRIGHTED, 1899, BY FRANK M. CHAPMAN.
Bird-Lore's Motto:
A Bird in the Bush is Worth Two in the Hand.
We have thus far avoided all mention of the financial side of the conducting of Bird-Lore, nor do we now propose to adopt the course which circumstances, alas! have so often forced upon popular natural history journals, of turning the editorial page into a plea for subscriptions.
We trust, however, that in this concluding number of our first volume we may be permitted to make several statements in which we hope our subscribers will have a mutual interest.
In the first place, replying to the inquiry as to whether Bird-Lore will not soon be issued at monthly instead of bi-monthly intervals, let us say that the management of Bird-Lore is with us an avocation to which we can devote only the margin of time left from fully occupied days. To publish it each month would involve greatly increased labor, which, under the circumstances, we cannot assume, and we have attempted to bridge this difficulty by printing as much matter in each number as is ordinarily contained in two numbers of any popular ornithological journal.
In the end, therefore, the subscriber receives quite as much for his money, and in support of this statement we may be pardoned for calling attention to the fact that the present volume of Bird-Lore contains some 200 pages of text with over 70 illustrations, more, we believe, than is offered by any other bird magazine for the sum of one dollar.
To continue with this unpleasant subject: being perfectly familiar with the sad fate which has befallen so many of our predecessors—and of which when this journal was in contemplation our friends rarely failed to remind us!—we did not establish Bird-Lore as a money making enterprise, but as a means of popularizing a study, the advancement of which is foremost in our desires, and as an aid to the cause of the Audubon Societies.