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Bird- Lore 



an excellent article for that purpose. While the impression is fresh in the 

 mind the card headings should be written, if they record facts bearing upon 

 the recorder's hobby. If, however, the records are of observations not 

 likely to be of use to the recorder, but which he designs to hand over to 

 some student who may make use of them, the head spaces of the cards 

 should be left blank for that student's use, to be filled in as he thinks best 

 suited to the classification of his catalogue. 



To illustrate this, let me here reproduce a card of my own recording: 



DR. EUGENE MURRAY-AARON 

 Lanier Heights, Washington, D. C. 



December Jj. ig02 



The male Carolina Wren, who with his mate has taken 

 up his winter quarters in my west library-window awning, 

 thereby making it impossible to take the awning down this 

 year, to its ruin no doubt, invariably sets up a great scolding 

 whenever the lions, panthers and wolves in the National Zoo 

 start up their sunset concert in the valley below my home. 

 If they are quiet, so is he. It sounds much like swearing. 



Now this card may interest an ornithologist; but, if so, I am not com- 

 petent to judge whether he will classify it under "Wren," "Carolina 

 Wren," "Nesting Habits," or how. And should some student of the cat 

 tribe take a fancy to the card he certainly would not thank me for filling 

 up that head line with the words "Wren, Carolina," as I would for my 

 own catalogue. 



The libraries of our scientific societies are all more or less cumbered 

 with manuscript note-books — note-books containing perhaps ninety-five 

 per cent of chafif. Some years ago, in the archives of a society that shall 

 remain nameless, I discovered note-books regarding his field observations 

 in America kept by that pioneer student of the diptera. Baron Osten- 

 Sacken. These, at least some of them, had been used as scrap-books to 

 hold clippings from daily papers regarding injurious insects, the source of 

 the clippings amply attesting the utter worthlessness of the material that 

 had obliterated Osten-Sacken's notes. There is nothing more unhandy to 

 deal with, to keep conveniently on library shelves, and to properly classify, 

 than the ordinary collection of note-books or diaries. Who ever saw two 

 of them of the same shape and size ? They are seldom thick enough to 

 label on their backs and, after a season in the field, are usually about ready 

 to fall apart, any how. And, as a rule, the useless material in them far 

 outweighs the useful. 



