Editorial 



319 



A Bi-Monthly Magazine 

 Devoted to the Study and Protection of Birds 



OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE AIDIBON SOCIETIES 



Edited by FRANK M. CHAPMAN 



Contributing Editor, MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT 



Published by D. APPLETON & CO. 



Vol. XXIII Published December 1,1921 No. 6 



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 Busb Is Worth Two in the Hand 



In reviewing the life-work of th? late Dr. 

 J. A. Allen, one is impressed by the fact that 

 this leader in the more technical phases of 

 systematic ornithology was for thirty-six 

 years actively identified with the cause of 

 bird-protection. The leading article in the 

 first 'Bulletin' of the American Orni- 

 thologists' Union's Committee on Bird 

 Protection, published in 1886, was from his 

 pen and was a logical exp:)sition of the 

 importance of bird conservation. He was 

 one of the members of this committee, later 

 was a director of the New York State 

 Audubon Society, and from the time of its 

 organization until his death he was a director 

 of the National Association of Audubon 

 Societies. 



Further inquiry would show that most of 

 Dr. Allen's associates in the work of bird- 

 protection were, like him, technical orni- 

 thologists and members of the American 

 Ornithologists' Union, Indeed we should 

 learn that the organized movement for the 

 preservation of our birds originated in that 

 body, and that from the beginning it has had 

 the support and active cooperation of the 

 ornithologists of this country. 



Under the wise guidance of William 

 Dutcher, the Union's Committee on Bird 

 Protection, of which he served for years as 

 Chairman, became, in effect, the father of the 

 National Association of Audubon Societies. 



The debt of bird conservationists to the 

 A, O. U. does not, however, end here. The 

 Union was also the parent of the Division of 

 Economic Ornithology of the United States 



Department of Agriculture (Now Bureau of 

 Biological Survey), and everyone familiar 

 with the history of bird-protection in this 

 country knows that the success of this 

 movement is in no small measure due to the 

 accurate information concerning the eco- 

 nomic relations of birds, which was made 

 available by the researches of this Bureau, 

 The day is dawning when a plea for the con- 

 servation of bird-life may be based on senti- 

 ment alone, but the pioneers in this field 

 found legislators deaf to arguments which 

 were not severely practical in their nature; 

 and it was the economic ornithologist to 

 whom one turned for convincing facts in 

 regard to the dollars and cents value of birds. 



At all times there have been associated 

 with the professional ornithologists in the 

 fight to save our birds, numbers of men and 

 women who, actuated by humane motives 

 and love of the most beautiful of animate 

 forms, deplored their wanton destruction. 

 Between these groups, whom we may des- 

 ignate as scientists and sentimentalists, 

 there has existed the utmost harmony and the 

 strength of the bird-protection movement in 

 this countrj^ owes much to the united front 

 which has ever been presented by bird- 

 protectors. 



May we suggest to the friends of birds in 

 England that they draw a moral from the 

 history of the movement in this country. 

 They have far to go before English birds re- 

 ceive the protection which American birds 

 now enjoy; but they will not, we fear, make 

 haste on the road unless science and senti- 

 ment travel hand in hand. 



BiED-LoRE again expresses its obligations 

 to the contributors who have made The 

 Season' so important a part of this magazine. 

 This bi-monthly survey of conditions in the 

 bird world by authorities situated at stations 

 distributed from the Atlantic to the Pacific 

 forms a source of condensed information of 

 current interest and increasing reference 

 value as the accumulating series of obser- 

 vations affords material for comparison. We 

 hope that students living in the districts 

 whence our reports come will cooperate with 

 their authors in making them as repre- 

 sentative as possible. 



