82 Vol. XXIV 
WASTED ORNITHOLOGICAL MATERIAL 
By W. H. BERGTOLD 
WITH ONE PHOTO 
N THE HISTORY of all sciences it appears that the first and early stages 
| of study in each one concern the larger, more striking and general aspects 
of the subject; then, successively, come periods wherein the smaller, and 
yet smaller, details are investigated, without finally reaching any limit to the 
minuteness of the parts or details examined. Ornithology presents no excep- 
tion to this rule; its study is now in the stage of examining its smaller, but 
not thereby less important, details. Hence ornithologists of today and of the 
future who wish to make substantial contributions to their science will have to 
work with the more humdrum and less showy particulars. 
These are days of efficiency along all lines, days when even the aid of a 
cinematograph is invoked to reveal useless or awkward ways in the manual 
applieation of labor; days when no single item of material is wasted if there 
be any possibility of its being utilized. There is a widespread belief that men 
of science work on a higher plane than does the mechanic or laborer; it there- 
fore behooves men of science to justify such a reputation by the higher accu- 
racy and exhaustiveness of their work. In the light of such a reputation, what 
would be said of the workers in, and the students of, a particular science, 
many of whom waste many of the opportunities and much of the material com- 
ine daily to their hands? Moreover, how much more would be said condemn- 
ing such a practice, if it were known that many of these opportunities and 
much of this material might never again be duplicated? 
It is the object of these few remarks to draw attention to the fact that 
large possibilities for the accumulation of a rich mass of invaluable data of 
various sorts are inherent in the birds annually collected for bona fide scien- 
tifie purposes, and that a considerable part of such possibilities is habitually 
wasted by a goodly proportion of bird collectors and preparators. 
There is, the writer is given to understand, in one large museum of this 
country, more than a quarter of a million bird skins; these skins, because of 
their very existence in this museum, have not been wasted, but on the contrary 
they have been of great use in the study and development of the science of 
ornithology. But, has each and every one of these skins been made to yield all 
the valuable data inherent in it when it came to hand as a fresh bird, and be- 
fore it was ‘‘made up’’ into a skin? Very few would be willing to answer 
*‘yves’’ to this question. 
Circumstances of equipment, climate, country, ete., often make it impos- 
sible for a collector to secure and record all the data pertaining to a fresh bird; 
no criticism ean lie justly against such a worker. However, a large number of 
bird collectors and preparators are not handicapped by such conditions or eir- 
cumstances, and yet they fail utterly to make record of many scientific facts 
related to each fresh bird. Each bird skin in any collection obviously means 
- the possession of a freshly killed bird, at some time by some one, usually a 
trained preparator or a scientific collector. It is true that many careful and 
enthusiastic collectors make every effort to utilize in every way fresh speci- 
