Nov., 1908 RETROSPECTIVE 217 Club, called the CONDOR from 1900 .on, to note the almost monthly improvement in tone, typography, size and general excellence. Local lists soon became prominent and their value cannot be overdrawn. The practice of listing species by their scientific names, giving the vernacular name the minor place, soon became common and marked a ra?dical step for the better. In the issue of November, 1900, a typo~ graphical scheme was adopted of printing the scientific' name of the species in heavy type and the vernacular name in light small capitals that can hardly be improved upon, and it is hoped that this method will be made permanent in the future. Reference to pages 136-138 of that issue will show that no subsequent typographi- cal scheme has been quite so successful in impressing upon the eye at first glance the name of a species sought; and it may not be irrelevant here to once more urge upon writers to allow no article to enter the pages of the CONDOR in which the scientific name of the species is not given. True that a text of a popular article, cumbered with scientific names, may be made bombastic and clumsy in the ex- treme, but it must be remembered that our work is scientific first and popular sec- ond; and if a species is mentioned in such a manner that it constitutes a record or may constitute one, the giving of the scientific name is a debt the author owes to ornithology. This is a subject that has been discussed from many points of view in the CONDOR, and the delightful Sierran gem 'of J. M. Welch has been used as an illustration of a type of article whose poetic charm would have been entirely de- stroyed by the introduction of a single Latin name (Vol. I, pp. 108-111). True; yet the Editor thought advisable to append a foot-note giving the locality written about, and had the author appended a foot-note giving not only the locality and date of his notes but the Latin names of the species referred to as well, the poesy of the writing would have been impaired not one whit, while the record would have stood for all time as of some value to ornithology. This point cannot be more strikingly shown than by an inspection of the Sep- tember issue of the CONDOR of the present year (Vol. X, No. 5). Of ten articles printed in this issue that deal with records of species, no less than three--nearly one-third--are entirely valueless as records simply because the species are recorded by the vernacular name alone. These are not articles that can be classed as "prose poems" in any sense whatever; they are records--records of value and interest; records of life history phases, records of breeding ranges of species; yet they will never get beyond the pages of the CONDOR, but, to quote Robert Ridgway in a let- ter of some years ago (March, 1900), "must remain buried where they now are" We are working in ornithology for the love of it--not for money; our only reward is the satisfaction of work well done, and the name we may make for ourselves; but no one can hope to see his records quoted or passed on, to the credit of his name, unless he makes those records complete and in the manner approved of by the scientific world. In May, 1902, the incomparable photographs by Finley and Bohlman com- menced to appear and marked another epoch in advancement. Field workers be- gan to realize the immense value of good photographs, and where these had been hitherto largely confined to the photographing of nests and eggs, a new impetus was given to the photographing of live birds in their native haunts that was evi- denced by the increased number of very excellent half-tones of this nature that made their appearance in the CONDOR during 1903 and thereafter. Particular men- tion must be made of the really remarkable series of photographs made by Walter K. Fisher on Laysan Island. The high grade of half-tones that formed the illustrations in the CONDOR at this time rendered necessary the best grade of paper, and with increased excellence
