92 



THE OOLOGIST. 



EDITORIAL. 



From editorial columns of "Bird 

 Lore," May-June, 1906, F. M. Chap- 

 man, Editor: 



"No bird-protective law should be 

 without a provision providing for the 

 granting of permits to collect birds 

 for scientific purposes; and, be it 

 said to the credit of the Audubon So- 

 cieties, they have invariably advocat- 

 ed the inclusion of such a provision 

 when urging the passage of bird-pro- 

 tective measures. 



"These permits are usually issued 

 by the State Game Commission, and 

 the present tendency is not only to 

 make it exceedingly difficult to se- 

 cure a permit but to restrict the num- 

 ber issued. 



"The conditions under which a per- 

 mit may be secured may well be de- 

 termined by those who give it; but 

 we believe it to be unwise to so re- 

 strict the number of permits in force 

 that deserving applicants are denied 

 the privilege of securing specimens 

 legally. 



With purposeless collecting we are 

 not in sympathy, but in this country, 

 at least, truly scientific collecting 

 for a definite purpose has never, to 

 our knowledge, perceptibly diminish- 

 ed the numbers of any species of 

 bird, and it seems a poor policy to 

 turn a reputable ornithologist into 

 a law-breaker or law-hater by refus- 

 ing to accord him permission to pur- 

 sue his studies within the limits of 

 the law." 



This tendency Mr. Chapman refers 

 to was carried to an extreme in Cali- 

 fornia last year and the New York 

 State Commission is pursuing the 

 same policy this year, if our infor- 

 mation is correct. 



We would join with "Bird Lore" 

 in protesting against the refusal of 

 permits to those who have used them 

 within the limits of the law and 



whose researches have yearly added 

 original information of value to our 

 sum total of knowledge in regard to 

 our birds. 



The editor of "The Oologist" has 

 in mind, two field collectors, whose 

 work in the most inaccessible loca- 

 tion, where none but the most enthus- 

 iastic bird lover, with a devotion to 

 his work that made the hardest of 

 work under manifold difficulties a 

 pleasure, would go; has placed the 

 breeding range of one of our warblers 

 many miles north of its recorded lim- 

 its, and that of another warbler as 

 much further south, and whose knowl- 

 edge so obtained has been sought by 

 the author of one of our coming bird 

 books as of admitted scientific value, 

 yet I understand that both of these 

 parties have been refused certificates 

 this year on the ground that the 

 State <j<iincil nothing by their work. 



We know of two cats harbored in 

 our near vicinity which destroy four 

 times as many birds every year as 

 these two ornithologists did in pur- 

 suing their studies last year, and 

 make practically no return for the 

 damage done, and these two cats are 

 only one hundredth of the cats in 

 this township alone engaged to a 

 greater or less extent in this slaugh- 

 ter. 



All honor to the Audubon societies 

 for the good they have done. But 

 when the laws enacted to forward 

 their work are so interpreted that 

 those who are above all others best 

 situated to cooperate in securing an 

 effective enforcement, become law- 

 haters, if not, as Mr. Chapman sug- 

 gests, actual law-breakers, we think 

 the effectiveness if not the actual con- 

 tinuance of the law is threatened, for, 

 the effectiveness is not the actual con- 

 in no country is the eternal fitness of 

 things so recognized by the masses 

 as in this United States of America. 



Publications Received. 



West, XXXII, No. 3: XXXIV, 4. 



American Ornithology, Vol. VI, Xos. 

 5 and 6. 



Warbler (New Series), Vol. II, No. 

 2. 



Amateur Naturalist, Vol. Ill, No. 1. 



Wild Life, Vol. 1, No. 1. 



Bull. Penn. Div. Zool, Vol. IV, No. 1. 



Condor, VIII, No. 3. 



