Editorial 



45 



A Bi-Monthly Magazine 

 Devoted to the Study and Protection of Birds 



OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE AUDUBON SOCIETIES 



Edited by FRANK M. CHAPMAN 



ContributinE Editor, MABELOSGOOD WRIGHT 



Published by D. APPLETON & CO. 



Vol. XXIII Published February 1, 1921 No. 1 



SUBSCRIPTION RATES 



Price in the United States, one dollar and fiftv- cents a year; 

 outside the United States, one dollar and seventy-five cents, 

 postage paid. 



COPYRIGHTED, 1921, BY FRANK M. CHAPMAN 



Bird-Lore's Motto: 

 A Bird in the Bush Is Worth Two in the Hand 



The exhibit of paintings and photo- 

 graphs of birds which, thanks to the local 

 committee of arrangements, was held in 

 conjunction with the annual Congress of 

 the American Ornithologists' Union, which 

 convened in Washington November last, 

 aroused so much interest that we hope 

 future congresses may be made the 

 occasion for similar exhibitions. They 

 serve not only to introduce artists to the 

 public, but personally, or through the 

 medium of their work, they introduce 

 artists to one another. Furthermore, they 

 have a distinct value which should react 

 favorably on the study of birds and 

 incidentally on the A. O. U. itself. Phila- 

 delphia Committee please take notice ! 



Unfortunately the distance between the 

 Congressional Library, where the pictures 

 were placed, and the National Museum, 

 where the A. O. U. was in session, was 

 great enough to prevent many, the writer 

 included, from returning to the exhibition 

 after the opening night. At the best, one 

 visit would not have warranted anything 

 like a critical review of the work of the 

 fifty or more artists and photographers 

 shown, while the crowd on A. O. U. night 

 prevented one from making a satisfactory 

 examination of the many subjects dis- 

 played. We brought away, therefore, only 

 impressions of an enthusiastic and appre- 

 ciative audience and of a surprising lot of 

 good bird portraits, including numbers by 

 artists practically unknown in the ornitho- 

 logical world. 



Most of the artists represented, however, 

 are primarily painters of birds, the larger 

 part of whose work has appeared as 

 illustrations in ornithological publications, 

 where, with identification as the chief end 

 in view, the figures have been made as 

 large and as detailed as possible. It was, 

 therefore, doubtless to be expected that 

 paintings of this nature would form the 

 larger part of the exhibition; and the 

 number and excellence of those shown is 

 an assurance that we shall not lack for 

 ornithological illustrators. 



On the other hand, paintings which 

 satisfactorily depicted the birds' haunts 

 as well as the bird were few in number, and 

 an artist without an interest in birds would 

 doubtless have examined the collection 

 with controlled enthusiasm. The need for 

 bird portraits will exist as long as there are 

 books and articles on birds to illustrate, 

 but beyond and above this field there is 

 another and even larger one occupied in the 

 Old World by such men as Thorburn, Lodge, 

 and Liljefors, a study of whose works 

 we commend to Americanb bird artists. 



To one who recalls the very beginning of 

 bird photography, and who remembers 

 the first photographs of living birds shown 

 before an A. O. U. Congress (secured with 

 much difficulty by a committee appointed 

 at the preceding Congress), the exhibit of 

 bird photographs was astounding evidence 

 of the part the camera has come to play 

 in bird-study during the past twenty-five 

 years. Nor could this exhibit adequately 

 mark the advance which has been made 

 since the motion-picture camera has been 

 added to the bird-photographer's outfit. 



This type of bird photography was, 

 however, duly represented at the regular 

 meetings of the Congress where Major 

 Allan Brooks showed motion pictures of a 

 surprising number of wild Trumpeter 

 Swans, Norman McClintock, intimate 

 studies of Egrets, White Ibises, Least 

 Bitterns and Gallinules on the reservation 

 of the National Association of Audubon 

 Societies on Orange Lake, Florida, and 

 Robert Cushman Murphy exhibited films 

 depicting the bird-life of the guano is- 

 lands off the Peruvian coast. 



