The appearance of the first volume of a projected series is the occasion for comment on scope, aims, and genesis of the work. The scope of Current Ornithology is all of the biology of birds. Ornithology, as a whole-organism science, is concerned with birds at every level of bi- ological organization, from the molecular to the community, at least from the Jurassic to the present time, and over every scholarly discipline in which bird biology is done;...