reaching as to bring home as trophies lifeless bodies and despoiled habitations, to be stowed away in cabinets where dust and insects and failing interest soon put an end to their usefulness. It is not intended, of course, to reflect in any way upon the establishment of orderly and well-directed collections, for such are absolutely necessary to the very existence of the science of ornithology. To such collections the great body of amateur bird students should turn
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CHICKADEE AT NEST-HOLE, WITH FOOD FOR YOUNG
for the close examinations necessary to familiarize themselves with the principles of classification and the distinctions between closely related species. Indeed, it is impossible for anyone to be intelligently informed as to the many varieties of birds, and their wonderful seasonal changes of plumage, without having actually handled specimens.
The growth of avian photography has been of short duration,—only a few years in this country and not much longer in England, where it seems to have had its inception. But there are already one or two good books dealing with the subject; and a goodly number of ornithological works of recent date, and especially the pages of the journal literature of the day, bear excellent testimony to the
