Editorial 



IIQ 



2^irb=1Lore 



A Bi-Monthly Magazine 

 Devoted to the Study and Protection of Birds 



OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE AUDUBON SOCIETIES 



Edited by FRANK M. CHAPMAN 



Contributin&Editor.MABELOSGOOD WRIGHT 



Published by D. APPLETON & CO. 



Vol. XXI Published April 1. 1919 No. 2 



SUBSCRIPTION RATES 

 Price in the United States, one dollar and liftv cents a year- 

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

 postage paid. 



COPYRIGHTED, 1919, BY FRANK M. CHAPMAN 



Bird-Lore's Motto: 

 A Bird in the Busb Is Worth Two in the Hand 



Bird-lovers of America are privileged 

 to have enjoyed (we should rather say to 

 enjoy) the companionship of a great man, 

 Colonel Theodore Roosevelt. To those of 

 us who knew him personally, that com- 

 panionship will certainly always be a very 

 real and living thing. 



Whether we like it so or not, this world 

 is one of change. The circumstances, the 

 pleasures, the opportunities, and the friends 

 of yesterday are not those of today. The 

 present is an intangible point which scarcely 

 exists, if at all. A moment does not register 

 on our consciousness until it is already past 

 and a mere memory. Looking back, we 

 are sometimes tempted to wonder if it is 

 really we who wake up in the mornings of 

 1919, we who lived in the nineteen-hun- 

 dreds, the nineties, or the more distant 

 eighties, or whether our selves of other 

 years have not migrated to our sons. 



An acquaintanceship with birds helps 

 faith in the permanence of the things worth 

 while, the things we love, in the face of an 

 ever-changing kaleidoscope of time. As 

 with each recurring spring we look forward 

 to and welcome back the migrants from 

 the South in regular succession, our own 

 youth is renewed with that of the woods 

 and fields. With waning winter we begin 

 to hear the Song Sparrow's refrain; mem- 

 bers of the flocks of Juncos along the hedge- 

 rows chase one another in exuberance and 

 burst into simple tinkling trills. This year, 

 as early as March i, scattered Robins are 

 back on Long Island, going quietly about 



their accustomed haunts, or signaling as 

 they take wing from the tree-tops for com- 

 panions who have not yet arrived. The 

 call of the Bluebird drifts down to us from 

 now here, now there in the sky, as though 

 he were a shuttlecock in the losing game 

 Caurus plays against the sun; Crackles fly 

 about the towns, clanging defiance of sur- 

 prises winter may yet have in store, and 

 restless flocks of male Rusty and Red- 

 winged Blackbirds appear in the swamps, 

 following close upon the heels of retreating 

 winter. Before this Bird-Lore reaches its 

 readers, the Robin chorus will be in full 

 swing from the tree-tops at dawn, and we 

 shall hear the notes of the Phoebe. The 

 flock of Red-winged Blackbirds will be 

 chattering in the swamp as it did thirty 

 years ago, though its personnel has changed 

 many times since then, as the feathers of 

 each bird change each year. 



Once tap the springs of memory and not 

 only time but space are annihilate. Over 

 the broad wastes of the central Pacific 

 Ocean, trade-wind-blown Tropic-birds are 

 still courting the sun as on my first outward 

 voyage. I may see the Red-wings if I wish 

 tomorrow, but so far as I can now tell, these 

 Tropic-birds will never again be within 

 range of my field-glasses. Yet they are, if 

 anything, the more real of the two. I 

 scarcely need close my eyes to see their 

 white forms circling over the blue water, 

 smell the clean wind, hear the spray strike 

 the vessel's rigging, and feel the staggering 

 decks underfoot and the warm sun stream- 

 ing down between the fleecy clouds. 



Colonel Roosevelt, had he been spared, 

 would now be enjoying the ever-wonderful 

 return of spring, not only in the general 

 way in which everyone enjoys it, but with 

 recognition and appreciation of each species 

 of bird as it arrived at Sagamore Hill. For 

 he himself was a bird-student — the slayer 

 of grizzlies and elephants took keen pleas- 

 ure in observing migrant Warblers with 

 an opera-glass. When but twenty years 

 of age, he published a paper on Oyster 

 Bay birds, and even during the strenuous 

 days of his Presidency he took time to note 

 those which visited the White House 

 grounds, and to keep a list of them. 



