148 



THE OOLOGIST. 



blue foot grasping the little beak in 

 death agony. This bird was one of a 

 lot collected for the National Museum, 

 and all of justification that science can 

 give to slaughter should have defended 

 this killing, but while not in a position 

 to pose as an opera glass student, the 

 writer confesses to a lump in his throat, 

 on the occasion of that sacrifice. 



As the opera glass student still muses 

 in the past, he may, if he has ever been 

 childish enough to read the writings of 

 opera glass students, recall some by 

 such authors as Mrs. Miller, the com- 

 parison of which wi*h writings of the 

 shotgun students, would not show un- 

 favorably for the ornithological knowl- 

 edge of the opera glass adherent. 



He might even recall an article ap- 

 pearing in the Oologist a few years 

 ago, written, I believe, by one since 

 deceased, Roy Fitch, on the house-keep- 

 ing of the Spotted Sandpiper, as com- 

 plete a paper, replete with little ob- 

 served facts as any that I now recall, 

 the result of patient, careful, accurate 

 observation, of a pair of Sandpipers 

 during the complete cycle of their nest- 

 ing and incubation, by Mr. Fitch, with 

 an opera glass. 



Such might easily be the results of 

 musing by the average ornithologist. 

 Can Mr. Wood recall any like memo- 

 ries in bis musings'? 



Though apparently Mr. Wood's 

 charity is not sufficiently far reaching 

 to extend its bounty to the opera glass 

 student, some members of which class 

 it would seem, have unjustly criticised 

 his methods. Yet it is sufficiently gen- 

 erous as to cast itself about the shoul- 

 ders of every ornithologist who studies 

 with a shotgun, of the sportsmen, the 

 pot-hunter, the plume-hunter, and the 

 woman whose head-gear proclaims her 

 tender heart and helps to make her 

 look "like an angel," gathering them 

 one and all into its protecting fold, in one 

 heterogeneous mass, from which alone 



the opera glass student stands for the 

 rejected. 



While some of this varied assemblage 

 may feel profound gratitude to Mr. 

 Wood for his unexpected defense, 

 others may not see their way clear to 

 doing so. 



It has been my good fortune to make 

 the acquaintance of a number of men 

 who being active and prominent 

 members of the 'American Ornitholo- 

 gists' Union, I have always supposed 

 were ornithologists. I wonder if these 

 would accept a defense that placed 

 tnem in the same category with the 

 assemblage above mentioned, on the 

 common plea that they sought person- 

 al enjoyment. For instance, I wonder 

 if Mr. Dutcher, whose earnest work on 

 the bird protection committee of the 

 A. O. U. has done so much to secure 

 restraining laws for pot and plume 

 hunters, would appreciate being thus 

 associated? 



While we concede with Mr. Wood 

 that for a solution of these questions 

 we must turn from the view point of 

 sentiment to that of economics, while 

 we admit the justice of his insistance is 

 the right of each man to seek his 

 pleasure how and where he will,. We 

 must not lose sight of one point that 

 Mr. Wood seems to have overlooked, 

 namely that when the pleasure seek- 

 ing of one comes in clash with tbat of 

 several the minority must give way to 

 the majority, the weaker to the 

 strorger. Thus when the bird desires 

 the insect, the latter is promptly sacri- 

 ficed, when the ornithologist desires the 

 bird, the desire is gratified, and when 

 the desire of the majority is to admire 

 and study the living bird, whatever 

 tends to excessive destruction in the 

 methods of shotgun student, pot-hunt- 

 er and plume-hunter must give way. 



The writer is as far from defending 

 the position of the extremist opera glass 

 student as that of the extremist shot- 

 gun student, but it would seem that an 



