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Bird - Lore 



2^irti=lLore 



A Bi-Monthly Magazine 

 Devoted to the Study and Protection of Birds 



OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE AUDUBON SOCIETIES 



Edited by FRANK M. CHAPMAN 



Contributine Editor. MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT 



Published by D. APPLETON & CO. 



Vol. XVI Published August 1, 1914 No. 4 



SUBSCRIPTION RATES 



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

 a number, one dollar a year, postage paid. 



COPYRIGHTED, 1914, BY FRANK M. CHAPMAN 



Bird-Lore's Motto: 

 A Bird in the Bush Is Worth Two in the Band 



On a preceding page of this issue of 

 Bird-Lore, Abbott H. Thayer discusses 

 the question of the comparative number 

 of our birds. This subject was brought 

 before the last meeting of the American 

 Ornithologists' Union, and it is interesting 

 to observe that Mr. Thayer independently 

 reaches the conclusions which were ex- 

 pressed by the members of the Union who 

 took part in the discussion. 



The lack of proper evidence and the 

 worthlessness of opinions based on memory 

 alone were admitted. Professor Munster- 

 berg's letter to Mr. Thayer gives a psy- 

 chologist's reasons why such testimony 

 lacks value. To them may be added 

 several which are more physiological. 

 Three or four decades is apt to make a 

 decided, if unacknowledged, difference in 

 one's power to see and to hear birds, as 

 well as to dull the keenness with which 

 one searches for them. When neighbors 

 tell us that Robins, or Orioles, or 'Chippies' 

 are not so common as they were thirty 

 years ago, we know that it is human-life 

 rather than bird-life which is failing. 



One, however, should avoid generalizing 

 on observations covering only one locality. 

 Following Mr. Thayer's statement that, 

 on the whole, birds are as numerous about 

 Keene, H. N., as they have been at any 

 time in his experience, covering fifty 

 years, we have the claim of Mr. Rolla 

 Warren Kimsey that at Lathrop, Mo., 

 birds are decreasing; and he gives evi- 

 dently valid reasons for this decrease. 



But, on a succeeding page (p. 277) of this 

 number, another Missouri correspondent 

 writes that birds "seem unusually plentiful 

 in Sedalia this spring." From Saginaw, 

 Michigan, Mr. W. B. Mershon reports 

 that he has never seen more Baltimore 

 Orioles than are present there this year, 

 but that there are fewer Bluebirds than 

 usual. 



With this variety of statement about 

 existing conditions, how can we hope to 

 know exactly the conditions which existed 

 say, thirty or forty years ago, in order 

 that we may compare them with those of 

 today. Few men are qualified by personal 

 experience to make such comparison, but, 

 so far as we are aware, those in a position 

 to speak with authority detect, all in all, 

 no marked change in the numbers of our 

 song and insectivorous birds. 



Mr. Joseph Grinnell, Director of the 

 Museum of Vertebrate Zoology of the 

 University of California, writes us that, 

 in view of the proposal to legalize the 

 marketing of all game in California, Dr. 

 Walter P. Taylor has been detailed from 

 the Museum's staff to conduct the cam- 

 paign against this undesirable legislation. 

 Mr. Grinnell so clearly expresses the duty 

 to the state of professional zoologists in 

 crises of this kind that we take the liberty 

 of quoting from his letter: 



"In thus announcing our participation 

 in active conservation, which of course 

 means putting aside, for the time being, 

 such other interests as field and museum 

 research, I would urge that it is the duty 

 of zoologists to make their special knowl- 

 edge available for the common good when- 

 ever the opportunity offers. By reason of 

 our work in field and museum we have 

 been privileged to acquaint ourselves inti- 

 mately with the animal life of the state. 

 This knowledge is now of economic impor- 

 tance. In the present instance, there is the 

 threatened danger that many of our game- 

 birds and mammals will be nearly or quite 

 exterminated through the excessive hunt- 

 ing which free marketing will undoubtedly 

 bring. This impending calamity is worth 

 fighting against." 



