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Alfred Russel Wallace : Alfred Wallace : A. R. Wallace :
Russel Wallace : Alfred Russell Wallace (sic)

 
 
The Future Problems and Aims of Ornithology
(S620a: 1905)

Editor Charles H. Smith's Note: A response to a letter of inquiry sent out by the Editor of the journal The Condor on this subject; Wallace's answer one of three, and printed on page 63 of that journal's issue of May-June 1905. To link directly to this page, connect with: http://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/wallace/S620A.htm


Broadstone, Wimborne, England
February 22, 1905.

Dear Sir:

     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 heredity of acquired characters, 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 accurate observation of animal life in the tropics, for the purpose of detecting the utility 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,
Alfred R. Wallace.


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