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Bird -Lore 



jlirti Eore 



A Bi-monthly Magazine 

 Devoted to the Study and Protection of Birds 



OrFICIAL ORGAN OF THE AUDUBON SOCIETIES 



Edited by FRANK M. CHAPMAN 

 Published by THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 



Vol. V 



Published August 1. 1903 No. 4 



SUBSCRIPTION RATES 



Price in tlie United States, Canada and Mexico 

 twenty cents a number, one dollar a year, post- 

 age paid. 



Subscriptions may be sent to the Publishers, at 

 Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, or 66 Fifth avenue, New 

 York City. 



Price in all countries in the International Postal 

 Union, twenty-five cents a number, one dollar and 

 a quarter a year, postage paid. 



COPYRIGHTED, 1903, BY PRANK M. CHAPMAN 



Bird-Lore's Motto : 

 A Bird in the Bush is IVorth Two in the Hand 



We figure in this issue of Bird-Lore a 

 portion of a group of birds lately placed on 

 exhibition in the American Museum of 

 Natural History. This group is intended 

 to be a companion piece to the Bird Rock 

 group completed some years ago. The 

 latter represents the sea-bird life of a rocky, 

 precipitous shore, while the more recent 

 group reproduces the sea-bird life of a sandy 

 beach. 



The first group has been pronounced both 

 a faithful and attractive representation of 

 the conditions it is designed to depict, but 

 in the newer group a further attempt at 

 realism has been made through the intro- 

 duction of a painted background. 



The observer is supposed to be standing 

 on the inner, westward side of the broad 

 beach of Cobb's Island, Virginia, and to be 

 looking eastward across the beach out over 

 the sea. The foreground, with its birds, 

 grasses and shells, is real, the more distant 

 beach and the sea are painted, but so clev- 

 erly are the two joined that, as our illustra- 

 tion shows, it is difficult to tell where one 

 leaves off and the other begins. 



We mention this exhibit not as a bit of 

 museum news, but to compare it with the 

 rows of birds mounted stiffly on T perches 

 which constitute the usual museum display 



in ornithology. On the one hand is mo- 

 notony of pose without suggestion of haunt 

 or habit; on the other, the bird is a part of 

 the scene in which, in life, it belongs. 



There is obviously small need for this 

 comparison so far as the merits of these two 

 types of museum exhibits are concerned, and 

 it is made solely to emphasize the difference 

 between effective and ineffective methods of 

 presenting facts in natural history. 



The public file past the endless rows of 

 stuffed specimens, pausing only here and 

 there for a second look at some bright color 

 or, perhaps, at the owner of a familiar name, 

 but in the end are brought no nearer the 

 bird in nature. And it should never for a 

 moment be forgotten that it is the bird in 

 nature to which the museum exhibits ought 

 to lead us. 



The stereotyped stuffed bird or bird's skin 

 will do for the student who refers to it as 

 one would to a dictionary, but it is em- 

 phatically not an object to appeal to one 

 whose interest in the language of ornithology 

 remains to be awakened. We may then 

 compel the attention of the unobservant by 

 appealing primarily to the universal love of 

 the beautiful. This Cobb's Island group 

 is a picture in color which few can pass 

 with only a casual glance. Once really 

 seen it arouses the curiosity. This may 

 lead to the reading of a label, and thus the 

 way is opened for the entrance not only of 

 the general facts which the group is de- 

 signed to illustrate but of those relating to 

 the birds of which it is composed. 



Nor is this lesson to be read by the mu- 

 seum curator alone. It belongs equally 

 to every teacher of natural history. It may 

 not always be possible for him to present 

 facts through the medium of a such group as 

 the one in question, but at least the fact 

 should have its proper setting, which should 

 not only be accurate but attractive. 



It is only failure to grasp a fact in its 

 proper relations, to appreciate its real mean- 

 ing, that leads some teachers away from the 

 truth in an attempt to secure their pupil's 

 attention. Thus we have natural history 

 fiction. But he has indeed a vivid imagi- 

 nation who can create fiction which shall be 

 more interesting than facts in nature. 



