l86 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 

 categor}^ 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. 

 2SS, 256. 



