28 The Ottawa Naturalist. [May 



and helping when we can, secure in the knowledge that any 

 results arrived at in Washington are applicable here and avail- 

 able for our use. In the meantime we will have our hands and 

 time free for other original work and avoid unnecessary and 

 wasteful duplication. 



Systematic zoology is pre-eminently the work of the closet 

 naturalist and though to the laity it is the proverbial dry-as- 

 dust work of the naturalist of caracture it ultimately underlies 

 our whole modern conception of life. The tracing out of the 

 relationships of species is our means of retracing the chain of 

 life back through the ages to its beginnings. The conditions 

 under which development arises gives us cities by which we are 

 beginning to understand the fundamental principles of living 

 creation. It is work, however, for the specially trained and 

 can onlv be successfully engaged in after considerable experiences 

 and preparatory study. In the ornithological field, so far, 

 Canada has been too busy with practical development to give 

 much attention to this field of endeavour. For the present, 

 therefore, we cannot hope to seriotisly compete with older coun- 

 tries who have already trained their staffs and where collections 

 represent material in series such as ours do not as yet contain. 



However, we can all do our mite towards preparing the 

 countrv for future work and future needs, gather data and 

 specimens and gradually train a scientific body competent to 

 attack the "riddles of existence" from the ornithological side as 

 well as from other directions. We are all searching for the truth, 

 the biologist, the geologist, the physicist, the chemist and the 

 astronomer. Far apart as we seem to be in our work, we are 

 all attacking the one great question from different directions. 

 The answer to an astronomical detail is often found by the 

 geologist or the chemist and the geologist receives illumination 

 from the physicist and the biologist. 



It is not an overstatement to say that zoology has had more 

 to do with the development of modem thought in its various 

 branches than any other science. The enunciation of the evolu- 

 tionary theory had a more fundamental effect upon current 

 thought and conception of life than anything that ever went 

 before it. Ornithologv is a branch of biologv and has done 

 its honorable share in making the intellectual world what it is 

 to-day. If we, as ornithologists labor and do our work con- 

 scientiously, with due appreciation of our responsibilities both 

 to science and to mankind, we can shed the light of our individual 

 tapers in some of the dark places and add our quota to the 

 general enlightenment. In the foregoing I have attempted to 

 outline or indicate a course for such work. 



