264 AMERWAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



harm to any one or anything, is doing a great deal of good in the world. 



Twenty years ago the only way to study natural history seemed to 

 be getting a permit, and then shooting a pair of every kind of bird, 

 getting their nests and eggs, and mounting them in cases for future 

 reference. This kind of work has had its use, and immense use at that, 

 but it has all got to change now. 



That was the way of the world in those days, and it is only a sign of 

 evolution that we want and find better methods gradually superceding 

 the old. The modern botanist no longer lays too great stress on com- 

 pleting his herbarium to cover every inch of ground in a kingdom. He 

 now thinks much more of photography as tributative to his science. 

 The biologist studies from a much more lifelike viewpoint than former- 

 ly. All is a moving cycle of living phenomena. This plant has a liv- 

 ing relation to the rest of the world because of the manner of obtaining 

 its food; that animal is of great interest not only because of its interest- 

 ing manner of "biting," but because it is a carrier of disease germs. 



In keeping with this new view of life, our methods of recording its 

 phenomena have changed. Our magazines are now appearing every 

 month with articles upon various phases of nature study, and the only 

 thing which makes them so generally read is the appearance of fascinat- 

 ing reproductions of all sorts of living things. Photographers who 

 have never taken anything but landscapes and portraits now catch the 

 contagious idea and, next we know, our friends are taking pictures of 

 birds and their nests, and their young, and of birds at dinner, and in 

 bathing. Because of the very natural feeling that one likes to know 

 about what he is doing, our friend ''reads up" about his bird and soon 

 becomes an authority; an authority, not because he has "read up." but 

 because he has been doing some telling observation. He has found 

 out more about a robin in one day than he would have learned in all 

 his life had he not been waiting to get a snap-shot of the bird feeding 

 its young. 



There are many people who now realize the insanity of the "old 

 natural history" methods (if indefinately continued), and they are setting 

 forth the new ideals in numerous magazine and nature journal articles 

 richly illustrated with photographs. It has become almost an axiom 

 that a student of nature, or a scientific biologist must be also a 

 photographer. It remains for the school teacher to instill into the grow- 

 ing youth such instincts as will lead to a quiet and refined future life in 

 contact with the rest of nature. The camera cannot fail in its mission, 

 and Natural History Camp is going to try and awaken a new interest 

 among the teachers of the youth in this most useful of accomplishments. 



