EDITORIAL AND GENERAL. 



61 



great movements in the study of nat- 

 ure, that for more than a quarter of a 

 century it included (almost exclusive- 

 ly) the great popular interest not only 

 in birds but in plants, animals, min- 

 erals, stars — everything in nature. 

 Probably more than half the scientists 

 of the world have had their stimulus 

 and training in its Chapters. 



In view of all our great work and 

 achievements, it is a most astonishing 

 fact of all nature interests that the 

 total direct gifts in over a third of a 

 century have been less than $7,000 ! 

 No officer or worker has ever received 

 salary. It has been a labor of love. 

 It has by prolonged and faithful work, 

 in intense self-sacrifice and, more than 

 all, by great achievements most certainly 

 demonstrated that it is worthy of liberal 

 s'tipport. 



Now just as we are entering on a 

 greater era of usefulness, friends of the 

 AA, life long students in the AA, let 

 us have the support and that, too, liber- 

 ally. 



Every dollar will be used to good 

 advantage. 



Words! Words! Words! 



This magazine stands for one fun- 

 damental purpose in nature study. It 

 is for the study of nature, not for the 

 mere reading about nature. We do 

 not care to receive long discussions 

 about nature in the abstract, with 

 elaborate descriptions of nature in 

 general. We want things that will 

 arouse an interest and tend to incite 

 direct personal relations between the 

 student and the studied. We want 

 every subscriber to feel that the editor 

 is a personal friend, who is more eager 

 to give help, where help is needed, than 

 he is to receive pages of flowery de- 

 scriDtions. The editor believes in 

 studying nature not in writing words, 

 words, words about nature. 



This does not include profound 

 technical investigation nor does it 

 necessarily exclude that kind of study. 

 The person who sits in the shade of 

 an apple tree and watches a robin 

 build her nest in another apple tree is 

 a close student of nature, and is as 

 truly and carefully studying as is one 



who makes sections of bumblebees in 

 parafine and for hours pores over those 

 sections and makes elaborate drawings 

 of them in his notebook by the aid of 

 the camera lucida. I believe that both 

 are right. One prefers one kind of 

 work, the other another kind. One 

 prefers the informal, the other the 

 strictly formal, and this magazine is 

 in sympathy with both, although it 

 prefers the informal. 



But it is not in sympathy with 

 articles self-evidently taken from 

 nature-study books or from encyclo- 

 pedias, nor is it in sympathy with mere 

 explanations of emotion excited by a 

 general view of nature as of a land- 

 scape, all of which might be condensed 

 in the assertion, "I love nature," "I 

 love nature," "I love nature." Let us 

 understand one another. We want to 

 avoid the necessity of returning manu- 

 scripts and photographs, because that 

 takes the time of the editor and of the 

 office clerk and is withal annoying to 

 the contributor. We welcome as 

 cordially and as promptly the original 

 observations of the novice as those of 

 the veteran. The question is, Have 

 you seen something of the interest or 

 beauty of nature that really means 

 something definite to you, and will 

 mean something definite to those for 

 whom you describe your observations? 

 We frequently receive letters in- 

 tended to be commendatory, which tell 

 us how interesting the magazine is and 

 how much the subscriber enjoyed read- 

 ing it. All this is of course pleasing. 

 We should not be true to human 

 nature if we attempted to convey any 

 other impression. All of us like ap- 

 preciative words, regardless of the 

 form in which they come. So while 

 we do not say that we dislike such 

 communications, we do say that the 

 only thing for which we are working 

 is to incite in both reader and con- 

 tributor a direct, personal interest in 

 nature. It is the editor's firm belief 

 that the multiplicity of books and mag- 

 azines on nature study tends, in a 

 certain and positive sense, to lessen 

 any real active interest that the reader 

 of such literature might otherwise have 

 been led to exhibit toward his immediate 

 surroundings, which means "that state 



