146 respondent*. [jm 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



The Concealing Coloration Question. 

 To nu; Km POB OF ' Tuk Air": 



Dear Sir: 1 have road t ho paper on 'The Concealing Coloration Ques- 

 tion,' by Pranois 11. Mien, which appeared in your October issue. While 

 1 am nol prepared to offer any criticism on the merits of this paper, for or 

 against, I do protest against articles appearing in the pages of 'The Auk' 



which bear such a smack of personality. Such papers only invite others 

 of like nature, and often result in taking up too much valuable space. 

 Very truly yours, 



Kt ruvKN Dxanb. 

 Chicago. 111.. 



December 2, 1912 



[In reply to the above and the following letters oi criticism the editor 

 desires to express his regret that any remarks objectionably personal 

 should, through his oversight, have appeared in the pages of 'The Auk.' 

 He found himself so strongly in sympathy with the position taken by 

 Mr. Roosevelt and Drs. Barbour and Phillips in this discussion, that he 

 hesitated unduly to exereise his editorial function for fear oi being unfair 

 to the other side. Consequently some statements in the paper referred 

 to were allowed to stand, which the author should have been asked to 

 correct and alter. 'Misquotations' and 'pieces of faulty reasoning" 

 (p 192) should have been clearly differentiated, for while 'misquotation' is 

 a serious charge, 'faulty reasoning' may be faulty only in the opinion of 

 the critic. In other words it is a matter oi personal opinion. Further- 

 more, the two examples of alleged misquotation that are cited cannot be 

 so regarded if the entire statements of Mr. Thayer and Mr. Roosevelt are 

 taken into consideration. Mr. Roosevelt was in the first instance not 

 quoting Mr. Thayer verbatim regarding the crouching hare, and merely 

 put in quotation marks some of Mr. Thayer's expressions What Mr. 

 Roosevelt was pointing out was that in one statement Mr. Thayer regards 

 the running hare as obliterated in the sight of creeping animals, which have 

 their eyes below the level of the hare's tail, while in another statement he 

 regards the crouching hare as boldly conspicuous in the sight of the same 

 class oi animals, and this is surely what Mr. Thayer says. 



In the other case it is charged that Mr. Roosevelt has misread Mr. 

 'Thayer when he quotes him as saying that an ... 



sUs SS Stump or (•/()■.:' -:.c.'i inanimate thing 



but y - - shading which /:■. soys is v the 



- j. 1 Here Mr. Roosevelt used no quotation marks 



> italicized portion quoted verbatim from Mr. Roosevelt's paper (italics mine). 



