Editorial 



169 



2^irtr=1Lore 



A Bi-Monthly Magazine 

 Devoted to the Study and Protection of Birds 



OrrlCIAL ORGAN OF THE AUDUBON SOCIETIES 



Edited by FRANK M. CHAPMAN 



Contributing Editor, MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT 



Published by D. APPLETON & CO. 



Vol. XX Published April 1, 1918 No. 2 



SUBSCRIPTION RATES 



Price in the United states, one dollar and fifty cents a year; 

 outside the United States, one dollar and seventy-five cents, 

 postage paid. 



COPYRIGHTED, lgi8, BY FRANK M. CHAPMAN 



Bird-Lore's Motto: 

 A Bird in the Busb Is Worth Two in the Hand 



The cause of nature-study has lost one 

 of its earliest and most effective advocates 

 in the death of Mrs. Frank N. Doubleday, 

 which occurred in Canton, China, February 

 22, 1918. Under the name of "Neltje 

 Blanchan" Mrs. Doubleday made nu- 

 merous contributions to the literature of 

 popular ornithology, botany, and horti- 

 culture. Her first and most important 

 book, 'Bird Neighbors,' was published in 

 1898, and at once met with a wider sale 

 than any other bird-book which had then 

 appeared. 



Mrs. Doubleday's book on 'How to 

 Attract Birds' was among the first formal 

 treatises on this subject in which she was 

 deeply interested. 'Birds Every Child 

 Should Know' further expressed her desire 

 to popularize bird-study, and she was 

 doubtless largely responsible for the atten- 

 tion paid birds by 'Country Life in Amer- 

 ica,' of which the firm founded by Mr. 

 Doubleday is the publisher. It was natu- 

 ral that a person with Mrs. Doubleday's 

 broad sympathies and active, constructive 

 mind should offer her services to her 

 country. Since the outbreak of the war 

 she had been continuously engaged in relief 

 work, and at the time of her death she 

 was traveling with her husband in behalf 

 of the Red Cross. 



In April, 1867, Robert Ridgway became 

 connected with the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion at Washington, and the present 

 month, therefore, marks the conclusion of 



his fiftieth year in the service of the 

 Government. A half a century takes us 

 back almost to the date of publication 

 (1858) of the Pacific Railroad report on the 

 birds of North America by Baird, Cassin 

 and Lawrence, or, in other words, to 

 the birth of systematic ornithology in 

 America. 



It was to Ridgway that Baird, claimed 

 by growing executive cares, handed the 

 torch which he had lighted, and during the 

 five decades which Ridgway has borne it, 

 it has steadily increased in power, until to- 

 day it shines without a rival in the world of 

 ornithology. 



Ridgway, in a memorial to Baird 

 presented before the Annual Congress 

 of the American Ornithologists' Union 

 in 1887, and published in 'The Auk' the 

 following January, states that until the 

 middle of 1864, when he was in his four- 

 teenth year, he was unacquainted with 

 the name of a single living naturalist 

 and with only general or superficial 

 works on natural history. At the sugges- 

 tion of a lady living in his native town of 

 Mt. Carmel, 111., he wrote to the Com- 

 missioner of Patents at Washington en- 

 closing a life-size, colored drawing of a 

 pair of Purple Finches with the name 

 "Roseate Grosbeak, Soxia rosea." 



In due time he received a reply from 

 Professor Baird, then Assistant Secretary 

 of the Smithonian Institution, commend- 

 ing "the unusual degree of ability as an 

 artist" shown in his drawing, which was 

 identified as that of a Purple Finch, and 

 offering to aid the young ornithologist by 

 "naming your drawings, or in any other 

 way. " 



It is interesting to remember that, just 

 about twenty-five years before, Baird had 

 appealed to Audubon for aid in identifying 

 a bird and had received a reply essentially 

 similar to the one just quoted. Actually, 

 as well as scientifically, Baird, therefore, 

 formed the connecting link between Au- 

 dubon and Ridgway. 



Three years later Baird called Ridgway 

 to Washington to start the career which 

 has made him foremost among systematic 

 ornithologists. 



