THE WILDLIFE SOCIETY 
 
 
      OFFICE OF THE EDITOR                                             /o
BIOLOGICAL SURVEY 
JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT                                          
 Wuahington, D. C. 
 
 
                                                                August 8,
1940. 
 
          Prof. Aldo Leopold, 
               University of Wisconsin, 
                    Madison, Wisconsin. 
 
          Dear Leopold: 
 
               Now that the issue of The Journal of Wildlife Management has
appeared 
          that contains the proceedings of the annual meeting, we are in
position to 
          go ahead with the duties assigned by President Cahalane in his
letter of 
          May 20. I note some remarks in the replies to Mr. Cahalane' s letter
indi- 
          cating lack of time to do the work requested, but I think the Advisory

          Committee should be considered to be acting as a unit in the matter
whether 
          every member is in position to render an opinion or not. It is
not likely 
          that a great amount of time will be required but if you really
are too busy 
          to participate in the deliberations, your abstinence will be understood.

 
               The duty of the Committee acting under the chairmanship of
the writer 
          for this specific purpose is to select the most outstanding paper
or papers 
          in the field of wildlife ecology or management and to prepare an
appropriate 
          citation or certificate for it, which, with the approval of the
Council, 
          shall be presented at the next annual meeting of The Wildlife Society.

 
              It is apparent that the Committee will have to adopt rules
to govern 
          its procedure. Regarding these, I am now making certain suggestions
and 
          will be glad to have your comments and additions. 
 
               (1) According to the resolution adopted by the meeting, the
paper or 
          papers shall relate to the field of wildlife ecology or management.
In a 
          wmay I regret this wording as there is an Ecological Society that
should be 
          able to provide adequate recognition for strictly ecological papers.
I 
          think that the Committee on behalf of The Wildlife Society might
well make 
          the reservation that an ecological paper to be considered for our
award 
          should have been prepared as a basis for wildlife management. 
 
               (2) According to the resolution, the paper or papers shall
be the 
         most outstanding. As a correlative of this, I would take it that
if there 
         is no sufficiently outstanding paper in a given year there should
be no 
         award. This brings up the question of how important a paper should
be. 
         We will have to accept something less important than Stoddard's
book on 
         "The Bobwhite Quail" or Leopold' s work on "Game
Management," but how far 
         shall we depart from that standard? Probably this matter can be
worked 
         out satisfactorily only in practice. 
 
               (3) I think it most desirable that it be understood that the
paper or 
         papers shall have been published contributions and here we are confronted

         with the question as to what is publication.  Under prevailing conditions

         it seems almost necessary to take processed contributions into considera-

         tion, but to an old-timer that also goes against the grain.