16 Birp KILLING IN ORNITHOLOGY. 
very bird at all. The theory itself I reduced to an absurdity in 
the proof that a type not constituted by and varying with its actual 
instances could not havé any identifiable instances whatever, alive 
nor dead, neither known nor demonstrable; even a “mere unit ” - 
instance per se defining its type by its own quality and character- 
istic of being one-of-an-aggregate. 
But ornithologists will doubtless continue just as before to kill 
for “scientific” purposes; and to be surprised if, by the cumu- 
lative effects of the subtraction of all “originals,” eccentrics or 
geniuses, birds disappear, or, as far as this cause is concerned, 
tend to disappear with a rapidity out of all proportion even to the 
large numbers collected; and if the layman far less preposter- 
ously goes gunning for a living. 
There are at present, more or less available for teaching, collec- 
tions public and private, which if merged as wanted would be far 
more than ample for all reasonable mere classifications. Let these 
be made available everywhere for ready reference as they are not 
at present, and all put under the charge of a single committee of 
the A. O. U.; let them be portable if necessary and varyingly dis- 
tributed in proportion to teachers’ needs. But let no ornithologist 
make the slightest pretence that they are the proper subject-matter 
of ornithology as a science. Let those ornithologists who have 
fortunately taken to bird-protection, stop excepting themselves for, 
any purpose whatsoever from their sermons. Let all ornitholo- 
gists, for purely scientific reasons, ostracize all who for any purpose 
of purely ornithological inquiry (unless they be pioneers with spe- 
cial license from their peers) kill a living bird. Let them, for 
science’s sake, treat such a murder, as criminal curiosity whenever 
manifested deserves to be treated. And then, perhaps, birds and 
the science of birds will greatly increase. And the authorities on 
birds will not be known, as now too many are known, by the scalps 
they have “taken.” 
REGINALD C. ROBBINS. 
1 Classification even tends of course modernly more and more to emphasize 
field-habits rather than mere structure: the latter receding into a comparative 
unimportance analogous to that of genealogy in sociological studies. 
