314 CniSll01..M. Pnvatc CoUcctUuj Tst^A^hi" 



beauty and freedom? 'I'he merest child has a primitive desire 

 to possess a pretty bird's egg; when self-control C(;mes that child 

 recognises, however dimly, the ethical wrong and futility of 

 taking the egg. He senses the fact that the egg of a wild bird 

 is not fulfilling its destiny as an emi)ty shell in a secluded cabinet. 

 Perhaps he appreciates also the fact that environment is an 

 essential to the full appreciation of beauty — he "cannot bring 

 home the river and sky." 



There you have the discipline born of the de\elopment of finer 

 feelings. It is these feelings that Mr. Ashby, consciously or 

 unconsciously, would have us sink in the making of private col- 

 lections. No, no. it is unt the i)lace of the R.A.O.U. to "throw 

 its whole weight" into the encouragement of collecting; it is our 

 duty merely to stimulate appreciation of birds. Then, if a young- 

 ster develops an inclination towards the more rigid (or frigid) 

 side of ornithology, b}' all means let him study such ; but let 

 those studies be pursued among national collections. 



Mr. Ashby is afraid that there is a lack of "work" to be done 

 outside the collecting sphere. Pish ! Can he, or anyone else, 

 name half a dozen Australian birds oi which the complete life- 

 histories have been written? There is ornithological work a-plenty 

 awaiting the youth of this country, and that work will be much 

 better done, and of vastly greater value, if carried out without 

 the sinister aid of a gun. It may be said that not all students 

 are capable of setting down the inner details of bird life. The 

 pages of the Emu do not bear out this postulation ; but — what 

 if it were true? G. K. Chesterton points out that the old poets 

 preferred writing about great men to writing about great hills, 

 ijut they .sat on the great hills to write it. "They gave out much 

 less about Nature, but they drank in, perhaps, much more." Sa 

 I suggest that the world is better for th^ cpiiet bird-lovers who 

 absorb the spirit-of-fact (exi)ressed in the live bird) than for 

 the whole army of collectors who deal in the matter-of-fact 

 (typified in a mummified skin). 



It is the oversight of such obvious truths as these that gives 

 me to fear that i\lr. .\shby has lost something of his sense of 

 perspective. That is the trouble with most private collectors. 

 They mav commence with the best of intentions, but it is only 

 a matter of time before that "accpiisitive quality" enslaves them 

 They become what the Americans term "go-getters." If a bird 

 is rare, or a clutch of eggs is rare, and cannot be secured by 

 personal effort--well, it must be got just the same. Think of 

 the pride of the small boy who has more marbles, and bigger and 

 brighter ones, than the other fellow! Think also of the unholy 

 joy of the collector who has a bird-mummy or egg that few 

 others can boast of! Verily, the accpiisitive quality is a gripping 

 thing! It is this that caused a collector (as a recent number 

 of the English Spectator telN n>;) lo make a gallant efiort \.o 



