186 SOME RECENT QUESTIONS IN ORNITHOLOGY. 
SOME RECENT ECONOMIC AND SCIENTIFIC 
QUESTIONS IN ORNITHOLOGY.* 
BY R, W. SHUFELDT, M. D., WASHINGTON, D. C. 
OrniTHOLOGy has attained to a status to-day never before 
reached by that science at any time within the recollection 
of man, or as shown by its literature. 
In this country its cultivation not only interests thousands 
of amateurs, but its pursuit is followed by a host of eager 
experts, while its economic value has not altogether been 
overlooked by the government, which annually makes an 
appropriation in support of a department dealing with orni- 
thological questions as related to agriculture. Regarded as 
the science is, then, from so many varied standpoints, it is 
not at all surprising that we find the collecting of birds 
actively undertaken for a great variety of purposes. Some 
of these are perfectly justifiable and fall strictly within the 
demands of the, science and are essential to its progress, while 
others lie more or less without the pale of any such need, 
and consequently are deserving of our most energetic con- 
demnation or prosecution. Thousands of birds are destroyed 
every year as a mere matter of sport, and either no use made 
of them whatever, or none worthy of mention. In this 
category, of course, I do not include the killing of game- 
birds for the table, a privilege that can be properly restricted 
legally, although it is very frequently more than abused. 
Many native birds are annually trapped for cages, and a 
* First published in Science, Vol. xxii, No. 562, Nov. 10, 1895, pp- 
255, 256. 
