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64 THE CONDOR VoL. 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. Look 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- ablebiological journals, magazines, bulletins, and proceedings which nearly all contain ornithological matter. It is highly amusing to read Temminck's despair- ing declamation, in the epilogue of his "Manuel d'Ornithologie," of ?84 oa, against the overwhelming deluge of periodicals, "from the southern part of Australia to the ice of the [north] pole." lie 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 prellminary 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 ?nust 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- icalgeneration 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 anmsement. 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.