8o Bird -Lore 



Mr. Lucas says that his letter must not be taken too seriously, thereby 

 admitting that his words are but an apology and not a justification, and it is 

 well that he does add that qualifying statement when he comes to speak of 

 the comparative values of Old Squaws and Great Auks. 1 would not 

 like to offer him a skin of the latter in straight exchange for one of 

 the former. He would likely defend his eagerness to trade on good, 

 scientific grounds. 



The mention of the name of Sir Alfred Newton as a defender of the 

 oologist, made me naturally turn to his Dictionary of Birds, but I find that 

 he does not seem to deem the word oology as of sufficient importance 

 to even mention it as a separate heading, and only refers to it under 

 the heading of "egg," p. 182. This edition is dated 1899, and seems 

 to indicate that with years a riper judgment has considerably altered his 

 opinions on this question. I quote what he says about it: 



"It is, therefore, eminently pardonable for the victims of this devotion to 

 dignify their passion by the learned name of 'Oology,' and to bespeak for it 

 the claims of a science. Yet the present writer — once an ardent follower of 

 the practice of birds' -nesting, and still, on occasion, warming to its 

 pleasures — must confess to a certain amount of disappointment as to the 

 benefits it was expected to confer on Systematic Ornithology, though 

 he yields to none in his high estimate of his utility in acquainting the 



learner with the most interesting details of bird-life " This seems 



to sum up the question in a few words that I have taken considerable space 

 to state. The apologetic tone that is so evident in Mr. Lucas' letter 

 and the editorial of Mr. Grinnell's in 'The Condor,' is most evident here. 

 In conclusion, I am induced to give the gist of a quotation that 

 floats hazily through the brain — from I know not where — but to the effect 

 that the greatest interest in oological work lies in "What contains the egg 

 and what the egg contains." 



This may be epigrammatic, but we sometimes find a good deal of truth 

 even in an epigram. — P. A. Taverner, Highland Park, Mich. 



Plumages of the Robin 



The colored plate of the Robin, published in this number of BlRD- 

 LORE, shows the female as duller than the male. Often, however, the sexes 

 cannot be distinguished in color, the female being fully as bright as a richly 

 colored male. 



