May, 1905 | THE FUTURE PROBLEMS AND AIMS OP ORNITHOLOGY 
63 
and amateur alike. No harm, at any rate, can arise from a sober discussion of a 
subject of common interest. It will be readily understood, of course, that these 
letters do not in any manner constitute a controversy, but represent only a free- 
will expression of the writers’ opinions. The series will be continued in the July 
issue. — W. K. F. 
Broadstone, Wimborne, England, February 22, 1905. 
Dear Sir: 
The chief department of Zoology that I take much interest in now, is the 
carrying out of experimental observations on the various alleged instincts of the 
higher animals (as the alleged instinct of direction) and also of experiments to 
prove or disprove the alleged heredity of acquired characters , and similar problems. 
With such a large endowment as the Leland Stanford University has, I wonder 
some experimental farm for these purposes has not been founded. Almost every 
other department of biology seems now to be overdone — except also the accurate 
observation of animal life in the tropics , for the purpose of detecting the utility of 
all the special characters of the various groups of land animals. 
I trust these hints may induce some students with independent means to take 
up some of these studies. 
Yours very truly, 
[Signed] Alfred R. Wallace. 
Washington, D. C., February 20, 1905. 
Dear Mr. Fisher: 
I thank you very much for your letter of February 2, and for the chance 
you give me to express my views on the future aims and work of ornithology, for 
such is the import of your questions, though worded differently for the specific 
purpose of advising the younger generation, i. e., the future ornithologists, those 
who are to take up the work where we are leaving it. 
Allow me therefore to reply more in general without taking up your questions 
formally and seriatim. I hope that by the time I am through an answer to most 
of them may be gathered from what I have to say. Throughout your inquiry 
there manifests itself a certain 'regret akin to that of Alexander the Great, when 
he despaired because there were no more worlds to conquer, as if all the work had 
been accomplished by this time, and that none — at least of any importance — has 
been left for the younger men. For my own part, I only regret that I was born 
too early, that I became an ornithologist at a time when only the rough work 
fell to our lot. The generations before ours cleared the underbrush, broke the 
ground, ploughed a small part of it, and put in some seed. The generation to 
which we belong has ploughed other patches and put in some more seed. We 
have seen some tender sprouts come up, we have weeded and watered in spots, 
but we have wasted an enormous amount of work, and energy, because we had 
only experience bought at the expense of many failures to teach us. We have 
discovered that those before us did not plough deep enough and that most of our 
own work, even, has to be gone over again. Moreover, when we started out, we did 
not first take into consideration the nature of the soil. We spent as much work 
on the w’aste land as on the fertile ground capable of producing crops. But we 
have learned something, and the future generation will profit by our mistakes. 
They will see the whole field in bloom and some of them may live to taste the first 
ripe fruits. 
