I«2 



Bird - Lore 



A Bi-monthly Magazine 

 Devoted to the Study and Protection of Birds 



OFFICIAL ORGAN nF THK AIDIIiDN SOCIETIES 



Edited by FRANK M, CHAPMAN 

 Published by THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 



Vol. XI Published August 1.1909 No. 4 



SUBSCRIPTION RATES 



Price in the United States. Canada and Mexico twenty cents 

 a number, one dollar a year, postage paid. 



COPYRIGHTED. 190<y, BY FRANK M. CHAPMAN 



Bird-Lore's Motto : 

 /4 Bird in the Bush is IVorih Two in the Hand 



Modern nature study, according to its 

 leading exponents, is merely natural 

 science for young folks; and your true 

 teacher of nature study aims to be as 

 accurate in opening the the child's mind 

 to the wonder and beauty of natural 

 laws as he would attempt to be in present- 

 ing the results of original research before 

 a body of his peers. 



Nevertheless, we are told by a writer in 

 the May issue of the 'Nature-Study Re- 

 view,' that "the aim in nature-study" is 

 to arouse "sympathy for all that is good 

 in life" without regard to whether such 

 sympathy be based on "fact" or "fiction." 

 In other words, the true story of the marvel 

 of life, in all its endless manifestations, 

 is not in itself sufficiently marvelous, but 

 must be supplemented by the products of 

 minds in which imagination vainly strives 

 to make up for ignorance. 



No teacher familiar with the known 

 facts in bird-life will ever feel the neces- 

 sity of resorting to fiction to stimulate the 

 interest or arouse the sympathy of children 

 in the real bird; and it should go without 

 saying that the real, lasting value of the 

 knowledge on which such interest and 

 sympathy is based is in direct jiroportion 

 to its accuracy. 



It is rather unfortunate that tlie editor 

 of the 'Bulletin' of the New York Zoo- 

 logical Si>ciety should state, in the June 

 issue of that publication, that, "even down 

 to i.Sg6, the s< ientific ornithologists of 



America, as a body, harl done absoliUely 

 nothing in the cause of bird protection." 

 Wholly aside from the exhibition of a per- 

 sonal animus which this statement obvi- 

 ously exhibits, it is untrue. 



Any one who writes on the subject 

 should know that the present bird protec- 

 tion movement in this country originated 

 with the American Ornithologists' Union, 

 which, in 1885, the year after its organi- 

 zation, appointed a "Committee on the 

 Protection of Native Birds," with William 

 Brewster as chairman. From this com- 

 mittee sprang the first Audubon Society. 

 Its Bulletin No. i, published in 1886, is 

 still one of the most efifective and con- 

 vincing documents in relation to bird 

 protection which has ever appeared; 

 while its Bulletin No. 2, published later 

 in the same year, contained the first draft 

 of what has since become widely known 

 as the h. O. U. 'Model Law,' and which 

 is now in force in nearly every state and 

 territory of the Union. 



Since the dates mentioned, the members 

 of the American Ornithologists' Union 

 have led the fight for the better protection 

 of our birds. It was the A. O. U. com- 

 mittee, under its chairman, William 

 Dutcher, which dispensed the Thayer 

 Fund, and largely from this phase of the 

 committee's work the National Associa- 

 tion of .\udubon Societies developed. 

 Every director of this Association is a 

 member of the American Ornithologists' 

 Union; and all have taken an active part 

 in bird-protective work. 



Let us also remember that, in 1883, at 

 the first meeting of the .\merican Ornithol- 

 ogists' Union, there was appointed a com- 

 mittee, with Dr. C. Hart Merriam as chair- 

 man, which two years later, as a result of 

 an appeal made by the Union to Congress, 

 became the Division of Economic Mam- 

 malogy and Ornithology of the United 

 States Department of .\griculture, and is 

 now the Bureau of Biological Survey. To 

 the "scientific ornithologists" who com- 

 pose this Bureau we are indebted for fully 

 90 per cent of the facts on which any log- 

 ical, effective plea for the conservation of 

 bird-life must of nccessitv be based. 



