THE OOLOGIST 



167 



DON JOSE C. ZELEDIN 



Don Jose C. Zeledin, the most dis- 

 tinguished of Central American Nat- 

 uralists, died in Italy July 16th, 1923. 

 where he had gone on a journey. He 

 was born in San Jose, Costa Rica, 

 March 24, 1846, and was easily the 

 most distinguished Central American 

 ornithologist. His name lives with 

 Zeledonia cornata and Anomalous 

 oseine, and various other species of 

 bird?. He was the father of Costa 

 Rican ornithology, and a personal 

 friend of Spencer F. Baird, George R. 

 Lawrence and other well known or- 

 nithologists- 

 He was blest with a personalty of 

 great charm, and had a familiarity 

 with the English language seldom ob- 

 tained by Spanish American natural- 

 ists. This brought him with close re- 

 lation with our countrymen of simi- 

 lar tastes. 



He lived to become one of the 

 wealthiest men in Costa Rica. But a 

 few months previous to his death in 

 conversation with me he expressed 

 himself thus: "If I could have one 

 more wish come true, it would be to 

 live a day again in my ragged clothes 

 and with muzzle-bore gun, amidst the 

 forests of Costa Rica." He left a 

 widow, but no children. 



Austin Paul Smith, 

 San Jose, Costa Rica. 

 An extended obituary of Mr. Zeledin 

 appears in the October issue of The 

 Auk.— R. M. B. 



THE RESULT OF BEING TOO 

 SCIENTIFICALLY SCIENTIFIC 



The Auk. Volume XL, October 19th, 

 1923, pp 716 has the following lament. 



"As a fellow editor we sympathize 

 fully with the editor of 'Bird-Lore' in 

 the appeal for commendation as well 

 as criticism, which he has presented 



in a recent editorial. 'Issue after 

 issue,' he says, 'the editor through his 

 own pen or that of his contributors, 

 addresses an unseen, and, as a rule, 

 unresponsive audience. An apparent 

 or actual error is promptly called to 

 his attention but he can assume that 

 he has won the approval of his read- 

 ers only by their failure to critcise.' 

 And then in lieu of commendation 

 from his readers, he proceed to lcII 

 us himself, what a thoroushly good 

 magazine 'Bird-Lore' is, and all that 

 he says we would enthusiastically en- 

 dorse." 



The Auk is supported, sustained 

 and kept going by the annual dues of 

 the Associate Members of the A. O. U. 

 Without this sustaining force there 

 would be no A. O. U., nor any Auk. 

 The Associate Members are nearly 

 all non-professional ornithologists. 



Elsewhere in this issue as a fellow 

 member of the Cooper Club, we have 

 railed attention to the drift of The 

 Condor. At least 95 out of every 100 

 persons who are interested in the 

 study of birds, are interested as 

 amateurs, and not over 9 out of every 

 100 persons have a sufficient educa- 

 tion in the dead languages of the past 

 to follow the various ramifications of 

 our common bird names, like the 

 Robin or Bluebird for instance, 

 through the winding, misty paths of 

 modern scientific ornithological litera- 

 ture. 



The great majority of the members 

 of the Cooper Club and Associate 

 Members of the A. O. U. pay their 

 dues regularly to keep the thing go- 

 ing, and scan each bi-monthly or 

 quarterly publication anxiously for a 

 few pages of bright, crisp everyday 

 bird observations and some good old 

 fashioned American names. At least 

 they look hesitatingly, in the hope 

 that some Latin name which by dint 

 of hard application, they have learned 



