io6 



lE&itorial 



SCIENCE AND AVICULTURE :— A correspond- 

 ence has been going on lately in our contemporary, 7"/^^ 

 Avicidhtral Magazine, in which my name appeared, 

 but in which it did not seem advisable for me to take 

 part, seeing that I met with as much less than justice 

 on the one side as more than justice on the other. 

 Now however that it is probably at an end I shall send 

 a short and uncontroversial letter to set both parties 

 right on certain points of fact, and that these points 

 of fact may be made as widely known as possible, I 

 propose briefly to allude to them here. 



A certain good friend of mine wrote with the 

 desire of calling attention to various matters connected 

 with what might be called avicultural "Reform," and 

 which during the last eight or ten years have been 

 more or less before the avicultural world. As a con- 

 sequence probably of my earnest and constant efforts 

 for the last three years in our own small circle of bird 

 lovers as a propagandist of doctrines I know to be 

 true, there is a general tendency to associate me 

 rather too intimately with the doctrines themselves, 

 and my friend therefore spoke of the various con- 

 clusions as though they were definitely mine and mine 

 only. 



I was not the discoverer of Septicaemia in birds, 

 nor of the fact that it is by most people mistaken for 

 Tuberculosis, nor of the fact that there is often an 

 intimate connection between it and ^%% food. Those 

 of our members who have Vols. II., III. and IV. 

 of Bird Notes can easily satisfy themselves of this. 

 Although, as has been repeatedly stated by Dr. 



