6 4 
THE CONDOR 
Von. VII 
This may seem a hard judgement on the work done, well intentioned and 
faithfully as it has been done. The workers are not to be blamed; they knew no 
better, could not know better. The work in ornithology has suffered exactly the 
same fate as nearly all the work in the biological sciences. The fact nevertheless 
remains, that most of the seed has fallen on stony, desert ground, and that conse- 
quently the sickly plants which came up withered under the rays of the scorching 
sun. Took over the amazing pile of literature which ornithologists have accumu- 
lated during the past century! You might fill room ofter room with such a library. 
And think of all the work involved and the money expended in the gigantic un- 
dertaking! Not only the cost of the books themselves, though some of the works 
run up into the hundreds of dollars, but cost of establishing and maintaining all 
the collections, private and public, which form the basis of all this accumulation. 
So vast is the pile that it requires bibliographic experts, for this branch alone, to 
keep track of the production. Nearly a score of journals, especially devoted to or- 
nithology, have been pouring a flood of literature, every one, two, or three months, 
over the head of the unlucky ornithologist, not to speak of all the other innumer- 
able biological journals, magazines, bulletins, and proceedings which nearly all 
contain ornithological matter. It is highly amusing to read Tennn inch’s despair- 
ing declamation, in the epilogue of his “Manuel d’Ornithologie,” of 1840", against 
the overwhelming deluge of periodicals, “from the southern part of Australia to 
the ice of the [north] pole.” He ought to live today! And in all this colossal ag- 
gregation, how much is of permanent value! When a man is searching for records 
of real, detailed facts to be used in solving any of the enticing problems which 
spring up all around us, how many hundreds of papers has he not to go through 
without finding a single, solitary fact upon which he can rely. If he is a worker 
with means and men at his disposal, he will turn his back upon the books and 
pamphlets, and send his agent into the field, if he cannot go himself, to ascertain 
that fact. And in most cases I think it will be found that the field is not in some 
distant continent in a place where no white man has yet set his foot, but right in 
some nearer region where ornithologists have repeatedly collected and studied, 
often even in localities famed for their ornithological associations! 
The ploughing must in many cases be done over again! We must plough deeper! 
With the exception of a large amount of the preliminary work done in this 
country during the last forty years and some of that recently begun in other coun- 
tries, it must all be done over again, but in an entirely different manner. The 
new work must be done according to plan and system, and with well-defined ob- 
jects in view. The essentials must be recognized, the unnecessary ballast thrown 
overboard. Not only the main connecting features must be kept in mind and not 
lost sight of in the mass of details, but the latter must be worked out with such 
conscientious care and accuracy as only a few great men of the former ornitholog- 
ical generation applied or ever dreamt of. The other minutiae which have no 
bearing on the ornithological problems can be left to those whose chief aim is not 
the advancement of science but their own private amusement. They do not con- 
cern us in this connection. 
It is plain that ornithology is thus to put on a new aspect. The trouble be- 
fore has been to a great extent that ornithologists were ornithologists and nothing 
more. But if they are not to become mere sciolists in fact, they must occupy the 
broad field of zoology or better still, biology. Zoology itself is changing its aspects, 
and the sooner ornithology follows suit, the better. 
Now by this I do not mean that the end has come to specialization. Far from 
a Volume IV, pp. 658-659. 
