*24 COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 



It will be well, however, for the editors of these journals to exercise 

 great care in selecting suitable authors to write articles upon Nature Study 

 in order to prevent errors and misstatements. 



It is painful for a scientist to note that such errors and misstate- 

 ments do occasionally appear even in our best journals. 



As an example of the truth of this statement, may be taken an ar- 

 ticle in a recent number of a well known educational journal. This article 

 is entitled " Bird Talks " and in this particular number the junco or snow- 

 bird and downy woodpeckers are discussed. A very poor figure of the 

 American redstart does duty for a " junco". Now as the redstart belongs 

 to a wholly different family ( the American warblers ) than the junco, which 

 is one of the great sparrow family, and bears not the slightest resemblance 

 to the snowbird, any one at all familiar with birds will notice this error 

 at a glance. While we think that it is far from a usual habit with snow- 

 birds to feed with English sparrows, they may occasionally do so, and the 

 author of the article may have seen them thus engaged, but we fear that 

 there is some chance of misidentification, as the junco seen is described 

 as having a " few dips of white on the end of his wing feathers." It is 

 quite true that the junco has the outer tail feathers white, but there is never, 

 in a normal specimen, any white on the tips of the wings. 



Will any school boy who has seen a downy woodpecker, state wheth- 

 er the scarlet patch is on the top of the head as stated by our author, or 

 elsewhere on the head ? 



We find it stated that the tongue of the downy woodpecker "can be 

 thrust out several inches beyond the bill." Several inches must mean 

 three, which is about the length 'of the body and neck of the downy 

 woodpecker. As a matter of fact, by actual measurement, taken from a 

 fresh specimen, now at hand, the tongue of the downy woodpecker can be 

 protruded just a little over one inch and a quarter from the tip of the 

 bill. 



Nothing can be more obvious than the fact that it is not desirable for 

 either publisher or reader of an educational journal, that such errors, of 

 which the above are examples, be printed. No amount of fine writing- 

 will make up for such inaccuracies, for one of the first principles which 

 should be taught in regard to scientific investigation, is care in record- 

 ing facts. 



It is well for teachers in working up science lessons for pupils, to use 

 care in discriminating between what are given by scientists as probabilities 

 only, and what arc given as actual facts. In nine cases out of ten, a 

 child does not remember that something is probably so. he remembers the 

 main idea, and that is too often recorded as an established fact. 



The third season of the bird classes, conducted by 0. J. Maynard, 

 has begun. Classes meet at the laboratory, 447 Crafts st., West Newton, 

 twice a week, Wednesdays and Saturdays. 



