1013 J Correspondence. 315 



nesting bird, and this practice cannol be objected to, provided a statement 

 i- made thai this was done; and yel in those cases the bird is undoubtedly 

 rendered more conspicuous than il is under entirely natural conditions. So 

 also with any bird thai nests in the open, away from grass and foliage, the 

 necessary nearness of the camera makes 'Ik- bird inevitably more conspicu- 

 ous, does it not? than i' would be at a little distance. Now my conteo 

 lion - and I still Hunk ii a sound one - is thai while some birds (as the 

 woodcock) may be inconspicuous even under the disadvantage of occupy- 

 ing a comparatively large proportion of the field of view in a photograph, 

 it i- not sound reasoning to assert that all birds which are conspicuous in 

 photographs are therefore necessarily so in nature. I see, however, that I 

 shall have to acquil Mr. Roosevelt of any unusual degree of inaccuracy 

 in this connection, since so distinguished a field ornithologisl as Mr. 



Chapman support < him. \- a matter of fact, though Mr. Chapman hflS 



appropriated my words 'inaccurate' and 'slap-dash' exclusively to the 

 single instance of the photographs, this was but one of a number of c 

 which I though! showed these qualities in the aggregate. It stood firsl 



in the list because it came firsl in Mr. Roosevelt's paper. 



Please understand that I am not now saying that Gannets, Murres, 

 ( hlillemots, etc., are inconspicuous in the field, hut .-imply that photographs 

 alone eaiinot prove their conspicuousness. for one thing, it appears to me 

 very probable that birds of largo, hold patterns, such as most of these rock- 

 ing birds wear, need a greater distance to make operative whatever 

 concealing power their coloration may have, and that birds that would 

 appear conspicuous from the point of view of the camera might be by no 

 means conspicuous at a greater, though not a great distance. 



I have read with interest Mr. Thomas Barbour'- late-t contribution to 

 thissubjed of Concealing Coloration (Auk, XXX, 81-91) and I am glad 

 to -ee that he thinks In- can distinguish common sense from superstition. 

 I dare Bay, however, that many superstitious persons have been equally 

 sure of their own common sense. The chief difficulty with Mr. Barbour 

 appears to be that he do'-s not perceive that common sense is a subjective 

 quality and that it make- all the difference in the world whose common 

 Sense it is — whether that of a well-informed person like himself or Mr. 

 Darwin (whom I quoted on the subject) or that of many a worthy day 

 laborer who doe- n't know the meaning of the word 'science.' He does not, 

 however, dispute my contention that something besides common sense 

 is needed in discussing scientific questions and that there is such a thing as 

 trusting it too implicitly, which after all was the only point 1 wished to 

 make. 



Now, taking up Mr. Barbour's criticisms seriatim and dealing with 

 them a- briefly a - possible, after passing over the matter of the 'fifty 

 instances,' etc . in which I have already confessed myself at fault in a cer- 

 tain measure, I come firsl to hi- statement that "a bird can In- conspicuous 

 in shape by being like a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher," which is certainly begging 

 the question with a vengeance. I freely confess 1 have never seen a 



