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Bird- Lore 



A Bi-monthly Magazine 

 Devoted to the Study and Protection of Birds 



OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE AUDUBON SOCIETIES 



Edited by FRANK M. CHAPMAN 

 Published by THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 



Vol. IX Published February 1, 1907 No. 1 



SUBSCRIPTION RATES 



Price in the United States, Canada and Mexico 

 twenty cents a number, one dollar a year, post- 

 age paid. 



COPYRIGHTED, I907, BY FR/ 



ch; 



Bird-Lore's Motto: 

 A Bird in the Bush is Worth Ttho in the Hand 



Various causes beyond our control have 

 necessitated a change in the order of publi- 

 cation of the plates of Thrushes as announced 

 in the last issue of Bird-Lore. The Wood 

 Thrush and Wilson's Thrush appear in this 

 number, the Robin will be given in April, 

 and in June the Hermit, Olive-backed and 

 Gray-cheeked Thrushes will be published. 

 Dr. Dwight will supply maps to accompany 

 the last-named birds, showing the nesting 

 ranges of their numerous races. 



It will doubtless interest Bird-Lores 

 readers to know that the bust of Audubon 

 recently unveiled at the American iMuseum 

 of Natural History, and which is figured in 

 this issue, was based solely on the print of 

 the Cruikshank portrait published by Bird- 

 Lore some years ago. 



We publish in this number of Bird-Lore 

 two additional communications in regard to 

 the subject of egg-collecting, and the editor 

 of 'The Condor' contributes a page to the 

 same controversy in the November- Decem- 

 ber, 1906, issue of that journal. 



None of the disputants, however, mention 

 what, as we have frequently stated, seems, 

 to our mind, to be the most deplorable result 

 of egg-collecting, namely : that in robbing a 

 bird of its eggs we are robbing ourselves 

 of an opportunity to study it during the 

 most interesting part of its life. 



The editor of ' The Condor ' extols what 

 he terms the "recreation phase" of egg- 

 collecting, and in California, the home of 

 'The Condor, 'one may find some admirable 



examples of 'oologists' to whom egg-collect- 

 ing is primarily a recreation, and very read- 

 able indeed are their often thrilling stories of 

 how ' rare takes ' were made. But if one is 

 in search of information in regard to the 

 nesting habits of California birds, he will 

 pass by these tales of adventure, attractive 

 though they be, for the recDrds of definitely 

 directed field work by an ornithologist who 

 went to California for the express purpose of 

 studying the home-life of California birds, 

 and wisely, therefore, left their eggs where 

 they were found. 



The controversy, after all, is more or less 

 academic. A comparison of present con- 

 ditions with those which existed twenty-five 

 years ago shows how much a thing of the 

 past egg-collecting has become. Nor is the 

 change surprising. As long as there was 

 anything to learn or to record from a gather- 

 ing of birds' eggs, their collecting was en- 

 couraged. But, when collecting brought 

 only duplication and the gratification of 

 the desire for acquisition, it was discouraged 

 and the collector discountenanced. Mean- 

 while more stringent bird -protective laws 

 have rendered increasingly difficult that 

 trading and trafficking in birds' eggs which 

 has ever been the mainstay of egg-collect- 

 ing; and eveiy one should rejoice that, in 

 North America at least, we have passed the 

 day when a mere hoarder of egg-shells 

 might pose as one of its exponents. 



The ' Warbler Book ' is so directly the 

 offspring of Bird-Lore, we are sure Bird- 

 Lore's readers will be interested to learn 

 that, if all goes well, it will leave the 

 printer's hands sometime in February. The 

 book has required just one year more time 

 to prepare than we had anticipated, but we 

 hope is one year better! 



Frankly, if we had known of the amount 

 of work involved in preparing a book of this 

 kind, we should have turned a deaf ear to 

 those who induced us to undertake it. It is 

 one thing to place on record what you your- 

 self know about a given subject, but quite 

 another to record also what everyone else 

 has written concerning it; and we have tried 

 to make the Warbler Book reflect existing 

 knowledge of North American Mniotiltidas. 



