British Trust for Ornithology

Abstract

FIELD ornithologists in the British Isles are making an experiment in co-operative research which, if successful, may have far-reaching implications. They have a peculiar problem to deal with, partly because the great majority of them are not trained men of science, and yet are being led on to territory where an advanced scientific technique is essential. Some of the combined operations recently carried out have been on an impressive scale. The census of heronries in 1928 needed some five hundred observers before it was completed, while the great crested grebe inquiry of 1931 and the two-year woodcock inquiry now in progress have each enlisted more than a thousand observers. Naturally such work calls for a high degree of organisation, but until very recently British field ornithologists as such possessed no national organisation whatever. Irreplaceable manuscripts, field-notes, photographs, maps and collections of literature or bibliography were got together and dispersed according to the hazards of individual existence. A number of prominent ornithologists, including Mr. H. F. Witherby, president of the British Ornithologists' Union and editor of British Birds, Prof. Julian Huxley, the Rev. F. C. R. Jourdain, secretary of last year's International Ornithological Congress, and Dr. P. R. Lowe of the British Museum, combined to fill this gap by forming tha British Trust for Ornithology as a permanent national trustee for the interests of field ornithologists. The Trust itself holds capital funds and assets in kind, such as a library, and collects subscriptions, which enable it to make grants for ornithological research. These grants, which at present are only on a very small scale, are being used to develop the nucleus of an Institute of Field Ornithology at Oxford, recognised and administered by the University. A national planning committee for the ornithological programme as a whole has been set up jointly by the Trust and the University.