ciplinary value, this "humane" treatment of the animal world, is a derived and 

 human value. It is based squarely on human rights, and not upon bird rights 

 in any absolute sense. 



The members of the Audubon Society, therefore, and the supporters of 

 all other humanitarian movements are right in placing great emphasis upon 

 the value of the humane treatment of birds and of all other non-harmful animals. 

 We honor and support them in this. The "protectionists" are wrong, however, 

 when their zeal leads them, as it sometimes does, to ground their case upon claims 

 of absolute instead of relative rights for birds. It is for this reason, chiefly, that 

 certain misguided zealots who misrepresent the bird-protection movement, have 

 begun to question the right of scientific investigation. These people, leaders, 

 some of them, flushed with recent successes (successes to which the efforts of the 

 ablest scientists have contributed), have suddenly begun to challenge the right 

 of Science to appropriate any of the objects of Nature. Or, if they concede such 

 a right, they do it grudgingly, with illconcealed purpose to deny that right in & 

 toto as soon as they dare. Meanwhile, they worry sober scientists like procura- 

 tors, and they haggle disgracefully over questions of when and how much. It 

 is time now for Science to challenge this maudlin officiousness and to confront it 

 with the sober fact of its false philosophy. The bird is not an end in itself, and 

 its claims are not absolute. 



Science bases its claims squarely upon the fact that the value of animal 

 life is not absolute. Only human values are or possibly can be absolute. So 

 long as the pursuits of biological science continue to occupy the human mind, 

 Science will continue to make requisition upon the objects of nature for her 

 studies. The only reason protectionists (of a certain morbid type) do not attack 

 the right of our great educational institutions to dissect in their laboratories 

 bushels of starfish and barrels of frogs and sundry hecatombs of cats (the more 

 the merrier!) — the only reason, I say, is that they do not dare to. The good sense 

 of the public wouldn't stand for it. But these same faddists have found a victim, 

 or think they have. It is the Museum of Comparative Oology. "What! Oology 

 a science! The insolence of the thing! Brethren, here is mutton! Allonsl" And 

 so Pycraft leads the attack (albeit haltingly) and sundry officials of humani- 

 tarian societies, both the overpaid and the underpaid, are training protection- 

 ists guns upon the breach, and the merry war is on. We are neither "too proud 

 to fight" nor too stupid to drag reluctant neutrals into the conflict. We are 

 quite prepared, if necessary, to be the enfant terrible of the zoological family; 

 but we will not be the goat. We are not prepared to bear the brunt of any hypo- 

 critical fusilade while smug professors of avian anatomy set on their hounds, 

 or while comfortable curators of mummified mole-skins roll pious eyes heaven- 

 ward and thank their divinities that they no longer collect birds' eggs. Gentle- 

 men, make no mistake, the ultra-protectionist, nourished for decades on an un- 

 sound philosophy, has marked you also for the slaughter. He is about to say 

 with the Barber of Berlin — he of the upturned moustaches — "You are next." 

 It matters little that we have right on our side, unless we are willing to stand by 

 our guns. There is, however, nothing to fear except our own cowardice. Cau- 

 tion! Caution! Wherefore? Let the other fellow be cautious once, instead of 

 turning loose a lot of irresponsible tittle-tattle which, if suffered to go unrebuked 

 or with rythm unchecked, would shake down the bridge which joins sanity to 

 science. 



Gentlemen, the Egg happens to be one of the most intimate and universal 

 of nature's phenomena. It shelters, or has sheltered, all of life above the lowest 

 strata. In the case of the Class Aves, Birds, the egg has recorded the accumu- 

 lated progress of aeons of biological history. It is today the only independent, 

 coordinate source of such information existing outside the somatic envelope. 

 It is possible, as our critics suggest, that the interrelational problem set by the 

 egg may prove to be one of almost insuperable difficulty. It is even conceivable 

 that the outcome of labored investigations yet to be undertaken will be disap- 

 pointing. We do not know. Columbus did not know when he set sail from the 

 port of Palos whether he should discover a new world or a grave. But any bald 



