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FOREWORD 



This publication has a double purpose; first, to acquaint the public with the aims 

 and worth of the institution whose name it bears; and, second, to prepare the way for 

 a systematic discussion of the scope, methods, and progress of oological science. While 

 this issue is chiefly given over to the first-named task, it has seemed worth while at 

 the outset to christen it with a name which may be more fully justified at a later time. 

 Though rating itself a "double number" of what may hopefully become a quarterly 

 publication, the Journal will content itself this year, and possibly next, with an annual 

 appearance. Because of its tentative character, therefore, we do not invite subscrip- 

 tion to the Journal at this time; but we shall be glad to receive acknowledgments from 

 all interested parties, and we will gladly mail copies, upon notification, to any oologists, 

 museum men, bird-lovers, or field-workers, who may have been unintentionally over- 

 looked. We shall, however, reserve 400 copies as file-fillers, against the day of quar- 

 terly publication. 



A "Journal" has come to be the accepted requirement of an institution. An idea, 

 if it be formative and constructive, must have a printed exponent. It is the purpose of 

 the Journal of the Museum of Comparative Oology to expound the ideas which lie 

 behind this institution, and to awaken interest, enthusiasm, cooperation, loyalty, in the 

 realization of these ideals. As such, this Journal is, frankly, the organ of a localized 

 interest, answerable only to the Trustees of the M. C. O., and supported by them 

 "whether the public will hear or whether it will forbear." But in a truer sense, this 

 Journal intends to be an exponent of the cause of Science, and a medium for the 

 exchange of ideas between those who love the pursuit of knowledge afield and who have 

 found in the collecting of birds' eggs not only a pastime, but a door of access into the 

 treasure-house of Nature. 



Reading in the book of Nature is an easy and oftentimes a luxurious task. A 

 thousand read where a dozen think; and of those who think there are fewer still who 

 understand. It is not amiss, then, that one should come along and say, "Understandest 

 thou what thou readest?" And the answer of the average bird-nester will be, if he is 

 truthful, like that of the eunuch of Ethiopia, "How can I unless there be someone to 

 guide me?" The M. C. O. was founded in the confidence that there are great truths to 

 learn, laws to be pointed out in the humble realm of oology. It was founded in the 

 belief that laws so discovered would throw a flood of light upon the trend of Life itself; 

 and 'that the Egg, from which all life comes, if properly interrogated, will tell us 

 something of Life's whence and, mayhap, of Life's whither. At any rate there is not in 

 the entire realm of the bird-world a structure more significant nor a record more 

 eloquent than that furnished by the painted oval which forms at once the fragile 

 cradle and the enduring monument of the race. 



Now it is true in one sense that collectors of birds' eggs are the standing joke of 

 Christendom. At the mention of Oology, "Science" winks prodigiously and screens a 

 grimace behind a discreet hand. In the adoption of this patronizing attitude toward 

 collectors, Science has been partly right and hugely wrong. We ourselves have been 

 like children who have built play-houses out of blocks covered over with cuneiform 

 inscriptions. Our concern has been altogether with the heaping up of blocks, and 

 not at all with the reading of inscriptions. Now the building of toy-houses is great 

 sport and venerable. Science does well to look on indulgently. But it does not do 

 well to pass on ignorant of the precious counters which laughing boys have played 

 with. It is time to read the inscriptions. It is time for Science to take account of this 

 cryptic language of nature, and to set about the translation of these records of the 

 past into the language of the present, "language that may be understanded of the 

 people." When that is done, and it can be done, Science will conceive' a new respect 

 not alone for itself, but for those sportive youngsters, boys who never would grow up, 

 whose instincts all along have spoken correctly, and whose accumulations will have 

 made the maturer reflections, the visions, and the brilliant achievements of oological 

 science possible. 



The Museum of Comparative Oology of Santa Barbara has set itself the task of 

 accumulating the phylugeuetic evidence offered by the eggs of the birds ot the world. 



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