. : Ne 
NATURALISTIC PERIODICAL LITERATURE OF AMERICA 45 
contracted with the more scientific ‘‘Odlogist’’ of nine years before, 
or the trend of scientific literature with which we began. There is an 
anouncement in the first issue of the magazine, as follows: ‘‘The 
Publisher of the Young Odlogist in order to obtain a large circula- 
tion for his little journal, offers the following inducements which he 
believes have never been equaled by any publisher’’. And then the 
offer is given. For fifty cents one will receive the year’s subscription . 
to the “little journal’ and any one of five articles which are listed. 
These articles are two abalone shells, an egg of a Yucatan Jay, an 
egg of a Curphorice, an egg of an oriole, and a fossil fern from 
Mazon Creek. The diversity of these subjects for a magazine in 
Ornithology was rather amusing to me. The extent of the fame of 
Mazon Creek at that early period in our biologic history, was also 
interesting. I think that this “‘never equaled’’ offer is rather 
Barnumesque. And it may well have been so, for that was the time 
of the triumphs of the ‘‘Big Show Man.”’ He had been exhibiting 
“The old nurse of George Washington”’ only a few years previously 
and:now he had advanced to Jumbo. 
The quick and eager response which such a magazine brought at 
that time is to be seen in looking over the ‘‘Inquires and Answers”’ 
for the first volume. There are contributions from Grinnell, Iowa; 
Clinton, Wisconsin; New York City; Auburn, Maine; Red Bank, 
N.J., Trumansburg, N. Y., Philadelphia, Huron, Dak., and Thayer, 
Kans. I think it rather striking that so many and such distant 
communities should thus be brought into the common interest which 
the magazine awakened. Rather, I suppose one should consider 
that the interest had already been aroused, and that people all 
over the country were waiting for something which would give 
expression and stimulation to this interest. Of course there is no 
attempt at adaptation of literary material in this early publication. 
There is no poem, no reference to any of the great nature writers. 
At this time, however, there was little to have referred to. Some- 
thing of the character of this poineer can be seen in the ‘‘ Editorial 
Melange.”’ It includes such notes as a whip-poor-will’s egg having 
been found by a'certain person of Flint, Mich. Another person of 
Hyde Park, Ill., had shot three evening grosbeaks during the past 
winter. Then there were records of when nests of certain birds were 
found, and comparisons of the date of finding with that of the pre- 
vious year. This smacks of the method of Thoreau’s journal. Per- 
chance his contribution in ‘“‘Summer’’ and the other season books 
