266 Avicultural Magazine" and Iii)d Notes 
The present Editor did not join the Club till 1905, but maintains 
that from its inception to the present, the character of the Club Journal 
has been mainly avicultural, it must naturally be as the organ of a 
Society of Bird-keepers, though the leading Foreign Bird Shows have been 
fully reported in its pages. 
During the eight years the writer has been Editor he has simply 
perpetuated what already existed. Certainly we have grown, and perhaps 
owing to his being purely an aviculturist, this feature in the Magazine 
has been emphasised. The growth of the Society and the popuUnty of 
its Journal speak for themselves, and no argument is needed to justify 
its existence. 
The object of the F.B.C. has never been to compete with or win 
members from any other society ; on the contrary, many members of the 
F.B.C. have afterwards become members of the .'\.S., and in like 
manner members of the A.S. have asked to be nominated 
as members of F.B.C. We have broken new ground and gathered 
in the major portion of our membership from hitherto unworked ground, 
in fact, sought them out, largely made our public, as it were — the result 
being, that in spite of losses from the war, we have a membersliip of 
about 400, and a popular high class Journal. 
Mr. Fillmer will probably make a rejoinder to the implied charge of 
breach of faith or inconsistency — though this hardly merits a reply, as the 
Club Journal has been commented upon, without protest, in the pages of 
the " Avicultural Magazine " at various times, and we very much doubt the 
wisdom of reviving old animosities, which we hoped had died a natural 
death. To do so at this juncture is, we repeat, hopelessly out of date. 
The above brief review of the policy, etc., of the F".B.("., since the 
writer has known it, is for the benefit of the newer members of F.B.C. 
To those of some years' standing it is superfluous. 
WESLEY T. PAGE, LdHor. 
MR. FILLMER'S REJOINDER. 
The September issue of the " .'\vicultural Magazine " contains a very 
strange article by the Editor, Mr. Astley, the purpose of which, it is not 
easy to understand. _ It is entitled "Has the object of the 'Avicultural 
Magazine ' been misinterpreted.' " and it contains rather lengthy quotations 
from some notes of mine in an early number of " Bird Notes." Reading 
between the lines, I gather that the star of " Bird Notes " is waxing and 
that of the " Avicultural Magazine " waning, and this is disconcerting the 
Editor of the latter to such an extent that he thinks it worth while, in a 
critical period of the Great War, to rake up the ashes of a personal 
controversy fourteen years old. , 
I have no intention of following his example. If it gratifies Mr. 
Astley to say that the Avicultural Society has never claimed to be a scien- 
tific society 1 shall not trouble to contradict him — but 1 fancy a good 
many of those who were leading members at the time I was associated with 
the Avicultural Society would by no means endorse his statement. I do, 
however, venture to suggest that it is rather late in the day to complain 
of what I wrote in the first number of " Bird Notes," just fourteen years 
ago. If what 1 said was misleading, which 1 do not admit, it surely should, 
and would, have been contradicted at the time. 
I should like, also, to point out that 1 resigned the Editorship of 
" Bird N otes " more than ten years ago, and have for many years ceased 
to have any share whatever in the control of its policy. It is obvious that 
statements made by me in 1901, as to the objects and scope of the Maga- 
zine, cannot in any way bind the present Editor and those associated with 
him in the production of "Bird Notes" in 191 5. 
HORATIO R. FILLMER. 
