_A Bird in the Bush is Worth Two in the Hand._ -----------------------------------------------------
The advice of a prominent ornithologist to beginners to collect all the birds of a species they can get, has so long misrepresented the necessities of the case and, at the same time, brought legitimate collecting into disrepute, that every one having the interests of the science of ornithology at heart will read with great satisfaction the circular entitled 'Hints to Young Bird Students' which we reprint on another page. Signed by a majority of the professional ornithologists of this country, representing the institutions where ornithology is most actively studied, it may be accepted beyond thought of dispute as representing the true attitude of scientific ornithologists toward the question of collecting. And in place of the advice to kill all the birds "you can get," what do we find? Virtually a plea to abstain from all egg-collecting, to take birds only for purposes of identification, and a statement that the student "will learn more of value by a study of the living bird than by collecting skins."
To our mind, the importance of this circular cannot be over-rated. It marks an epoch in the history of North American ornithology. The future ornithologist is not to be a mere hoarder of birds' skins, but a student of bird-life whose researches, we predict, will prove an invaluable aid in the solution of that most difficult and most important of all biologic problems, the relation of animals to their environment.
The paper by Mrs. Olive Thorne Miller on 'The Ethics of Caging Birds,' published in the last number of Bird-Lore, has been both commended and condemned. Some correspondents have considered it a most rational and unprejudiced treatment of the subject, others have written that as its general tenor might encourage the caging of birds, it was not to be endorsed. Particularly do they deplore what Mrs. Miller feels to be "a work of charity,"--the rescuing of birds "from the discomforts of a bird-store" for, they say, that the dealer replaces the sold bird with another, and the final result is to encourage the trade in birds. Of this there can be no doubt, and the question, therefore, becomes one for debate, as to whether the pleasure to be derived from the companionship of a caged bird, the humanizing influence which may be exerted by association with a creature dependent on us, and the knowledge we may acquire of its habits, justify us in depriving it of its liberty--assuming, of course, that it receives proper care. We shall be glad to receive the opinions of our readers on this subject.