592 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVII. No. 432. 



NEBEASKA ORNITHOLOGISTS' UNION. 



The fourth annual meeting of the Nebraska 

 Ornithologists' Union was held in Lincoln, 

 Neb., January 24, 1903, . on which occasion 

 the following papers were read: 



Rev. J. M. Bates: President's address — 'Birds 

 and Man.' 



Mrs. C. S. Lobingier : ' Educational Value of 

 Bird Study.' 



Miss Anna Caldwell : ' Devices for Interest- 

 ing Children in Bird Study.' 



Rev. J. M. Bates : ' Observations on the Num- 

 ber of Birds to tlie Square Mile in Custer County.' 



Ma. Wilson Tout : ' The Crow in Nebraska.' 



Me. Myron Swenk: ' The Birds of the Niobrara 

 Valley.' 



Dk. E. H. Wolcott : ' Birds of Cherry County, 

 Neb. 



Dr. R. H. Wolcott : ' Remarks on a Record of 

 Nebraska Ornithology.' 



Newly elected members raised the total 

 membership of the society to nearly two hun- 

 dred. 



The following officers were elected: 



President — F. H. Shoemaker, Omaha. 



Vice-President — ^Miss Anna Caldwell, Lincoln. 



Corresponding Secretary — J. C. Crawford, Jr., 

 West Point. 



Recording Secretary and Editor (permanent) — 

 Dr. R. H. Wolcott, University of Nebraska. 



Treasurer — ^Mr. August Eiche, Lincoln. 



Executive Committee — Dr. G. E. Condra, Uni- 

 versity of Nebraska; Dr. H. B. Lowry, Lincoln; J. 

 A. Dickinson, Gresham. 



The office of Custodian was created as a 

 permanent office and Myron Swenk, of Lin- 

 coln, appointed to fill it. 



The presentation of a considerable amount 

 of material, including many skins on which 

 records are based, was reported, and it was 

 resolved to secure, if possible, for the collec- 

 tion, all the material in the state upon which 

 the past records of the occurrence of rare 

 birds in Nebraska had been based. 



A committee was appointed to complete the 

 formal organization of the Audubon Auxiliary 

 and to put in definite shape terms of affiliation 

 between it and the union. 



Egbert H. Wolcott, 



Secretary. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



BIOMETRY AND BIOMETEIKA. 



To THE Editor of Science: May I as one 

 of the editors of the above journal make a 

 personal appeal to the American scientific 

 world through your columns? My reasons 

 for doing so are twofold. In America the 

 novel, be it in science, politics or industry, is 

 not a priori condemned as the undesirable or 

 the fatuous, which is its customary fate in 

 Europe. Secondly, the list of American sub- 

 scribers to our journal shows us that Amer- 

 ican biologists and mathematicians are will- 

 ing to consider on its own merits what 

 biometry has to say for itself; they are not 

 from the beginning hostile to the new move- 

 ment. In Europe the older teachers will 

 have nothing to do with the subject. The 

 list of subscribers shows that we depend 

 chiefly upon the younger workers here; and 

 every difficulty is put in the way of their 

 doing biometric work. This is extremely 

 serious, for it means that appointments and 

 fellowships will not follow on research work 

 in biometry, and thus young scientists are 

 and will be discouraged from taking it up. 

 Quite recently a young American biometrician 

 working here was surprised to find the scorn 

 with which the officials at a great national in- 

 stitution treated his measuring work. ' Well, 

 tell us what biometry has proved ? ' was the 

 question put to him by officials, whose library 

 contained no copy of the journal, and who 

 apparently had never studied its pages. An- 

 other young worker proceeding to take up a 

 colonial appointment was warned by one of 

 the doyens of zoology on all grounds to give 

 up this foolish biometric work. A third, 

 going to work in one of the greatest conti- 

 nental zoological laboratories, finds its world- 

 renowned head disgusted because he attempts 

 to solve a problem by statistics which in fact 

 can and can only be solved in that way. 



None of our responsible biometricians claim 

 that there is one way only of solving all bio- 

 logical problems, but solely that there is only 

 one way, the statistico-mathematical method, 

 in which certain problems can be answered. 

 We do not, therefore, aim at depriving biol- 

 ogists, pure and simple, of their field of ac- 



