328 Bird -Lore 



school curriculum. There should be no mistake in understanding this dis- 

 tinction. If we desire to see bird- and nature-study taught in our schools, we 

 must see to it that it is kept to a true and high standard, from the lowest grade 

 up. It may be taught as simply as one chooses — in fact, the simplest methods 

 are usually the best methods — but these methods should rest on a firm foun- 

 dation of real knowledge, and not on a sketchy, anecdotal method patched 

 together without any definite purpose out of scrappy, 'catchy' bits of 

 information. Compare such books as 'The Woodpeckers' and 'The Bird 

 Book' by Mrs. Eckstorm, or 'The Handbook of Nature-Study' by Mrs. 

 Comstock, with some of the so-called elementary bird- and nature-books, 

 and see how possible it is to follow a thoroughly careful, scientific method 

 in a simple, accurate way even with children. 



Reviewing, next, the lectures on birds and related subjects which have 

 been subjected to the criticism of being over-popularized, let us take one 

 backward glance, to see what has been the occasion for such lectures. Until 

 the Audubon Society was formed, and the Division of Biological Survey estab- 

 lished, the pubhc, with the exception of trained students, knew as Httle about 

 the habits and activities of birds, probably, as it did about the forms of deep- 

 sea life. Now and then a born observer, a true nature-lover, gleaned some fact 

 of interest or noted some unobserved phase of behavior with reference to 

 birds; but, in general, great ignorance about this subject was everywhere so 

 common as to be unperceived. 



These conditions at first demanded lectures of a more or less popular 

 nature, to present to and impress upon the mind of a thoughtless and indifferent 

 public the facts of the alarming and needless destruction of bird-life, then at 

 its height. Through these lectures or talks, whether circulated in print or by 

 word of mouth, a certain kind of necessary information was made current. 



After this earlier critical period followed one which has been described as 

 more strictly educational, based upon an ever enlarging acquaintance with 

 bird-life. Readers of The Auk, Bird-Lore, The Wilson Bulletin and The Condor 

 in this country, and of equally comprehensive foreign ornithological publica- 

 tions, have kept abreast of the thorough and rational study of birds conducted 

 at widely varying points, with reference to many phases of bird-life. Some 

 of the lectures now available to the public present notable facts gleaned from 

 these latter sources; but certain ones deal mainly with statistics of a former 

 day which, although striking and well worth every one's consideration, have 

 become a kind of ornithological cant through repetition. In addition to this 

 drawback, some of these lectures are evidently put together with the idea that 

 an audience must be entertained or cajoled into listening to a talk upon birds. 

 These are the lectures which offer stones in place of bread. It is not necessary 

 either to reiterate statistics which had their most immediate application at a 

 time when the terms economic ornithology and conservation of natural re- 

 sources were not generally understood, or, to assume that the subject of bird- 



