INTENSIVE FIELD 

 OBSERVATION. 



By C. William Beebe 



Two questions were recently put to me, neither of 

 which I could answer. Nor could several well-known 

 fellow ornithologists to whom I propounded the same 

 queries. Does the male Song Sparrow assist in incu- 

 bation? Does the female Wood Thrush ever sing? 

 The answers to these and to hundreds of other prob- 

 lems relating to our commonest birds would be real 

 contributions to science, of as much value as the dis- 

 covery of an entirely new species, or the more or less 

 complete list of birds of an}^ one locality. 



The time is near at hand when the most significant 

 contributions to ornithology must come from careful 

 observation in the field. The majority of the more 

 recent books completely sustain this assertion. Two 

 have recently appeared which deal respectively with 

 the Infancy and the Coin-tship of animals and another 

 is concerned wholly with the intensely interesting life 

 of the Antarctic Penguins. For further verification 

 one may consult Theodore Roosevelt's newly pub- 

 lished volumes on the "Life Histories of African 

 Game Animals," especiall}^ the chapter on coloration, 

 while his article dealing with his South American trip 

 in the May Scribner's is replete with similar senti- 

 ments. 



We are all too apt to think that worthy scientific 

 discoveries can be made only in the wilderness or in 

 foreign countries, whereas the history of our common- 



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