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THE CONDOR I Vol. II attack---good naturedly I hope you will believe, and with a good motive--the assumed utility of some of the work we of the Cooper Or- nithological Club are doing. We all have at heart, I believe, the welfare of the Club--its growth in strength and use- fulness. You will, no doubt, agree ::with me that to add to its strength we must do work that will interest outsiders--workers, and those who will furnish the sinews of war. To add to its usefuhmss our work must be of akind that will give to the science of ornithology facts that will make possible a simpler classification--a classification based upon structure, function and habits. This is what Coues fought for with such uncompromising courage. He fought a good fight. I believe his work will live after him. We shall xniss him sadly, but his trenchant words remain to ns now that he is gone. He, more than others of our best men, insisted on the weight structure should have in governing classification. Classifying is knowing, and a knowledge based on facts of a deeper significance than external characters, or on the name of the dis- coverer of a species, is what ?'e should aim at. Facts of this deeper meaning, gathered by close and svsle?Jtalic observation and patieutly classified, will be of immense value; first t > the science our Club has for its raison d'etre, next, to kindred sciences and ultimately to the science of Ethics, the science that draws from all the scieaces, umterial for those con- clusions that are of supreme importance, in that they influence. couduct--make it possible for us to formulate rules and deterurine roearis for the attainment of the ultinmte end-- HAPPINESS. In collecting trayfuls of eggs, drawerfuls of skins, are we doing a work that will be usefill in the way I have indicated? I think not. The egg collector--aside from what tie learns of the nesting habits of birds (a knowledge, by the way, he nfight acqnire without the robbery) adds nothing to the data that are of value in the proper placing of the tiereaved birds in the scale of evolution; m'.d, by the ter?ns of the argument, it is such data we should expend our energies in collecting--data that have a bearing on that point, data with a meaning. To reinlet the collection of such data of any avail, we must bring to bear much patience, much honest labor in getting at the meaning. Every adaptation of the organism to the eviron- ment (such as the weak sternum and powerful pelvis of (;eococc?. , the Roadrunner, or the prolongation of the tibia in (bl.l,ntbus, the Loon--to take lnarked instances that are most familiar to all of us) every such adaptation is worth studying; worth tracing from its appear- ance as a bud to its fullest developmertt, or from the beginning of its decadence to its more or less complete atrophy. What can we learn from a comparison of size,' shape and colorat. ion of the eggs? .There is, no doubt, a relation between the characters of the egg and the bird that laid it; but ismthat rela- tion one that means anything to us? Does it help us in our search for the solution of the problem before us? The mere ga, thering of eggs and arranging them in trays tolook pretty is not, it seems to me, an object .worthy of us. It is. too much like -?the collecting of postage stamps, souvenir spoons, or the flags of the nations. There is another face to the matter of egg collecting that should?not be passed over in silence. Doing as we are doing are we justified in our animadversions upon those .who are guilty of promiscuous robbery? (z,ide remarks at a recent meeting upon the course pursued by schools--fostering in children the crime of robbing birds' nests). Is not the difference between our crime and theirs one of de.,Tee only, not of kind? Do the results in our case palliate the wrong? The careful collection and arrangement of a series of skins--if the homologics and differ- ences are conscientiously studied, and the results of such study put in shape to be of use --is a work that must bear valuable fruit. But I think a rigid system is necessary to justify the hope of any substantial addition to the sum of knowledge. Division of labor is the prime requisite of this system, for no one man--unless be has unlim- ited time and money at his disposal--can make a thorough study of ?nore than a species, a genus, possibly a family--at most, an order. If we were a compact organization, working under one roof, nothing interfering with our work along these lines, to one member nfight be assigned the study of the embryology, to another the anatomical structure, immature and adult, to a third the functions, habits, etc., of a wider range of objects than I have sug- gested. But these are no! the conditions under which we are working and IJttt$l work. The existing conditions make it possible to do thorough work only by each member taking up a definite group as his object of study, and rimking his investigation an exhaustive one-- noting and recording the life history of the group selected-- nvt ab ovo, but ab e,tbCvone to the end of the struggle for existence; never losing sight of the pathos of this bitter struggle-- never doing aught to make the struggle more bitter; never causing our leathered cousins unneces- sary pain; never deliberately taking a life where the benefit to science will not at least balance.the evil. If we ignore this detail it is ?nere pharisaical humbug to prate of the sin of indiscriminate sl. aughter of birds for millindry purposes. The exhaustive investigation I urge as a slate qtta ?ton to a substantial increase of our knowl- edge calls for more than merely collecting and