The cooperation of Members and well-wishers, therefore, is especially needed and 

 desired during this unexpectedly prolonged period of preparation and accumulation. 

 The change only means that for the time being the local funds hitherto devoted to 

 held work will be turned into another channel, and that the exchange program will be 

 suspended until the return of Mr. Dawson from his accomplished task. As evidence 

 of our own good faith, we are publishing the "Journal" without a subscription list, 

 and are proposing to our esteemed members and correspondents a donation-subscrip- 

 tion of material in lieu of annual fees. 



THE QUESTIONNAIRE. 



During the winter past the.M. C. O. put out a "questionnaire," addressed to 

 oologists both home and foreign, and soliciting information oological and biographical 

 for use in our files. While some valuable data have been submitted in response to 

 this invitation, we cannot claim that the experiment so far has been an unqualified 

 success. Evidently, we have bungled somewhere. For one thing, we neglected to 

 enclose return postage. This was not an oversight exactly (we addressed these 

 questionnaires only to those who had already received a copy of the "Journal," with 

 our compliments) but it was a mistake. We admit it sorrowfully. 



And again we were unfortunate in having too many rivals in the field, some whose 

 presence filled the mind with foreboding. There was the Draft Questionnaire, a 

 stupendous document, before which the stoutest heart quailed. "Do I have to fill out 

 that thing? But I don't want exemption." No matter if you were ready to pour out 

 your life blood upon the spot for your country, you had to go through the documen- 

 tary grill first. And there is the Income Tax Return burrowing into your vitals more 

 familiarly than your trusted family physician! "What! another questionnaire? Away 

 with it!" And this is the year of the Census. We have rehearsed our family circum- 

 stances patiently to a casual stranger and we had supposed that our patriotic duties 

 were done. "Another! Really, you must excuse me!" 



Well, the joke is on us; but now that we have all had a laugh about it, the 

 M. C. O. ventures, most humbly, to repeat its request for information. The census 

 returns have been made; the tax inquisition is over for this year; the war is past; and 

 the issue before the house is that of increased cooperation among oologists. The 

 returns that have come in are mighty interesting to us. They would be to you. 

 Wouldn't you like to know, for instance, who has the largest private collection in 

 America? Whom do you think? We know; but we "dassent" tell — out loud. Isn't it 

 a matter of congratulation that Col. E. C. Stuart has 40,000 eggs representing 2000 

 species and subspecies of Indian birds? Or that Wm. Mark Pybus, Esa., has 

 authentic eggs of the Eskimo Curlew? We know pretty much who are in the 900 

 class (a very few. by the way), and we are permitted to tell Members of the M. C. O. 

 Messrs. Bent and Harlow, for example, are in the "800" class. How many more are. 

 there? But, of course, mere numbers are not the object sought in collecting eggs, 

 nor rarities even. Completeness within a chosen field is probably the highest object 

 which the private collector sets before himself, and it would be interesting and profit- 

 able to know just what everybody's specialties are. 



Some of our correspondents, and these almost without exception the more eminent 

 ones, have answered every question with painstaking accuracy. Our sincerest thanks 

 are due them for this courtesy, and we anticipate the pleasantest of relations based on 

 such frankness. We have given the Questionnaire the "once over" and the results are 

 valuable as far as they go. We beg those who have put this matter by, or who have 

 hesitated to commit themselves, as well as those who have merely neglected it, to 

 send in full answers at early convenience, or to notify us so that we may send them 

 new blanks. 



The Case of the Santa Cruz Island Jay, Aphelocoma insularis Hensh. 

 AN EXAMPLE IN COMPARATIVE OOLOGY. 



One of the prime objects of the study of comparative oology is the determination 

 of values in what we may call Comparative Genology. By genology we mean a study 

 of the vital characters which distinguish species, a study of geno-dynamic values, as 

 distinguished from structural characters, habits, psychology, etc. A geno-dynamic 

 appraisal to be of any value must involve a pretty thorough knowledge of the present 

 status of a given species, its distribution, its associations, its reactions with other 



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