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Bird - Lore 



A Bi-Monthly Magazine 



Devoted to the Study and Protection of Birds 



OFFICIAL OKGAN OF THE AUDUBON SOCIETIES 



Edited by FRANK M. CHAPMAN 



Contributine Editor, MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT 



Published by D. APPLETON & CO. 



Vol. XV Published February 1. 1913 No. 1 



SUBSCRIPTION RATES 



Price in the United States. Canada and Mexico, twenty cents 

 a number, one dollar a year, postage paid. 



OOrTBIGMTBO,I9<a. BY PRANK M. CHAPMAN 



Bird-Lore's Motto: 

 A Bird in the Bush Is Worth T-m in the Hand 



The cause of popular bird study has 

 suffered a great loss in the death of 

 Chester A. Reed, which occurred at Wor- 

 cester, Massachusetts, on December i6, 

 191 2. Although only thirty-six years old, 

 Mr. Reed had already made important 

 and unique contributions to the wider 

 diffusion of a knowledge of birds through 

 the volumes which he had illustrated. He 

 was possessed of exceptional ability as a 

 depicter of bird-life, was a tireless worker, 

 and was making steady progress in his art, 

 with ever}' prospect of a productive 

 future, when he fell a victim to pneu- 



A writer in 'The Auk' for October, 191 2, 

 queries the value of bird photographs as 

 scientific representations of the scenes in 

 bird-life they record. "I take it," he 

 writes, "that the birds in most photo- 

 graphs do not appear at all as they would 

 under average conditions in their natural 

 surroundings." And he would even have 

 us believe that "the end and aim" of the 

 bird photographer is to make the birds 

 they photograph as conspicuous as pos- 

 sible. 



Beyond question, the bird photographer 

 does, on occasion, take undue liberties with 

 his subject; but also, unquestionably, he 

 has presented us with a vast amount of 

 data of the highest scientific importance, 

 and in most instances it requires compara- 

 tively little experience to decide whether 

 the photographer's desire to secure a 



picture has marred the scientific value of 

 his work. In other words, it is usually 

 possible to tell whether or not the photog- 

 rapher has chosen some view-point or 

 changed the nature of a bird's surround- 

 ings in order to make it appear, from a 

 mere pictorial standpoint, more attractive, 

 or whether he has made a faithful record 

 of things as they are. 



A photograph of fledglings placed in a 

 row on a twig before a white background 

 presents them under such obviously 

 artificial conditions that no one would 

 think of citing such a photograph as a true 

 record of the bird's appearance under 

 natural conditions; but photographs of 

 birds on their nests, whether made at a 

 distance or nearby, usually represent them 

 under conditions which make such 

 photographs truly scientific records. Some- 

 times, it is true, the photographer makes 

 the figure of the bird so large that but 

 little room is left for its surroundings. 

 Here again, however, the shortcomings of 

 the picture are obvious and hence not 

 misleading. 



The pages of Bird-Lore possess many 

 photographs of birds which we believe 

 truthfully represent them as they appear 

 in nature; and for purposes of comparison 

 in the present connection we reproduce 

 two of them, one illustrating conspicuous- 

 ness, the other inconspicuousness. The 

 first shows approximately 400 Gannets 

 nesting on a broad ledge of the red sand- 

 stone cliffs of Bonaventure Island, about 

 200 feet below the photographer, and we 

 believe it to be as faithful a rendering of 

 the scene, as we saw it, as can be por- 

 trayed in black and white. The second, 

 made at a distance of a few feet, repre- 

 sents a nesting Ptarmigan, a totally 

 different type of bird and background, but 

 in an equally truthful manner; and we 

 maintain that such photographs repro- 

 duce nature with all the exactness which 

 science requires. 



On January 8, the Editor, accompanied 

 by Louis Agassiz Fuertes and four assist- 

 ants, sailed from New York for Colombia, 

 to be gone for several months. 



