see differently. I can at best report only from my own wilderness. The most important thing is that each man possess such a wilderness and that he consider what marvels are to be observed there.-Loren EiseleyThe man who taught me how to skin birds had had many years of experience in museum preparation; it showed in the dexterity of his aged hands. The skins were always well cleaned; their cotton bodies were always of very uniform proportions. When we had finished and a row of fresh study specimens lay before us, labeled, pinned, lightly wrapped for drying, I always felt as if something creative had been accomplished to so skillfully salvage a few useful portions of lifeless animals. Always my teacher would shake his head, saying quietly under his breath, "No one does this any more. "The museum tradition in ornithology is dying. The three million or so skins, skeletons, and anatomical specimens in collections in the United States have largely served their intended purpose in the pursuit of taxonomic and biogeographical investigations. . . One cannot deny that important taxonomic problems remain unresolved. . . but neither can one deny that the tide has turned and that museum science is ebbing.(Ricklefs, 1980)
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.