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May, 19o 5 I THE FUTURE PROBLEMS AND AIMS OF 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, Wireborne, England, February 22, ?9o5. D?.AR SrR: 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 heredil. vot acquired c/?aracters, 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 aeonrate observation of animal life in lhe lropics, for the purpose of detecting the ulilil), 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] ALI?'RED R. WALLACE. Washington, D.C., February 2o, ?9o5. 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 waste laud 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.