NOTES AND NEWS.
Dr. Frederick DuCane Godman, one of the original Honorary Fellows of the American Ornithologists’ Union, a past president of the British Ornithologists’ Union and famous as one of the authors of the ‘Biologia Centrali Americana,’ died at his home in England on February 19, 1919, aged 85 years.
Dr. Godman was born on January 15, 1834, and was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. At college he met Osbert Salvin and the two developed an intimate friendship which was broken only by Salvin’s death in 1898. There were other college friends too, all of them interested in ornithology and they used to meet for comparison of notes and specimens. This led to the formation in 1857 in the rooms of Alfred Newton, of the British Ornithologists’ Union.
Entomology and Botany also engaged Godman’s attention and a trip with Salvin to Jamaica, Belize and Guatemala, in 1861, resulted in the collecting of a large amount of natural history material. They united their collections and began preparations for the great work on the natural history of Central America which has been ever closely associated with their names—the ‘Biologia Centrali Americana’ the first parts of which appeared in 1878. Godman with a corps of expert collectors visited Mexico in 1888 in the interests of this work, while at various times he made trips to different parts of Europe, and North Africa. He published a work on the Azores in which islands he had travelled extensively and was also author of numerous articles in ‘The Ibis’ and other scientific journals. During his later life he was more interested in entomology, pursuing extensive studies in the Lepidoptera, but joined with Dr. Bowdler Sharpe in 1907 in getting out a Monograph of the Petrels, a work which his friend Salvin had always had in mind.
Dr. Godman was deeply interested in hunting and fishing and his great diversion from his more serious work was horticulture. He served both as Secretary and President of the B. O. U. and was a trustee of the British Museum. His death leaves but one of the original Honorary Fellows of the A. O. U., Count Salvadori.—W. S.
Robert Day Hoyt, a pioneer naturalist and bird collector in Florida, died at his home at Seven Oaks, near Clearwater, Florida, on November 23, 1918. Although never a member of the American Ornithologists’ Union, he possessed a wide knowledge of Florida birds and through his collections contributed much to the advancement of ornithology in that State.
Mr. Hoyt was born in New York City, November 18, 1857. When he was about eighteen years of age, his parents moved to Madison, New Jersey. He early developed a love for the outdoors and the living creaturesabout him. When still quite young he became acquainted with David Dickenson, of Chatham, New Jersey, and from him learned the art of taxidermy. He then went to Florida on a collecting trip and spent several weeks camping with his father on the St. Johns River, the Oklawaha, and Silver Springs. He continued to visit the State every winter thereafter until 1881, when he moved to Clearwater and bought the place at Seven Oaks where he lived the rest of his life.
He improved every opportunity to collect natural history material and amassed a considerable collection of mounted birds, birds’ skins, and birds’ eggs, which is now in the Florida State Museum at Gainesville. He was a skilled taxidermist and his services were always in demand for such work. He mounted a large number of birds for Mr. John Lewis Childs, of Floral Park, New York, most of which are now in the Brooklyn (N. Y.) Museum.
Unfortunately, Mr. Hoyt found little time or inclination to publish the results of his observations. Following is a list of the only papers by him known to the writer:
Nesting of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in Florida (Campephilus principalis). The Warbler (2nd Series), I, No. 2, pp. 52-55, 1 plate. Nesting of Ward’s Heron (Ardea herodias wardi). Ibid., I, No. 4, pp. 114-115.
Nesting of the Roseate Spoonbill in Florida. Ibid., II, No. 3, pp. 58-59.
The American Robin in its northern migration, Feb. 15, 1915, in Pinellas County, Fla. The Oölogist, XXXV, pp. 6, 9; 2 plates.
Mr. Hoyt is survived by his widow, two sons, and two daughters.
TheMuseum of the California Academy of Sciences has recently acquired by gift the entire ornithological and oölogical collection of Messrs. Joseph and John W. Mailliard, prominent business men of San Francisco, and Fellow and Member respectively of the American Ornithologists’ Union.
The collection contains close to 25,000 specimens, and is primarily a research collection. Of bird skins there are more than 11,000 specimens representing 777 species; of nests and eggs there are upwards of 13,000 specimens representing more than 600 species.
The Mailliard brothers have been interested in birds from their boyhood days, and these collections are the result of more than forty years of careful, painstaking field work. There are perhaps few, if any, collections that have been made with greater care or in which a greater percentage of the specimens have real scientific value. In the ornithological collection are some of the first reliable records of several species of California birds, as well as the only specimens of other species from localities where they are now unknown. There are also many albino specimens of unusual interest, and several remarkablehybrids. Of certain forms the series are the most complete of any collection in America. In the oölogical collection there are large, carefully selected series of species now difficult or impossible to obtain.
The Messrs. Mailliard are members of the Cooper Ornithological Club and are both actively interested in the California Academy, John W. Mailliard being a trustee and Joseph Mailliard honorary curator of birds in the Academy’s Museum.
The Academy is certainly to be congratulated upon securing this valuable collection, which, added to those already in its possession puts this institution in the front rank in the field of ornithology and oölogy in western America.
Nowthat the war is over and travelling becomes possible again a number of collectors are in the field. Roy Chapman Andrews of the American Museum of Natural History has returned to China to continue his work there, and Mr. Klages, the well-known bird collector, is making a trip through French Guiana to the Amazon. On February 26, Capt. William Beebe left New York with a party, which will establish themselves at the Tropical Research Station of the New York Zoölogical Society in British Guiana, where work of much importance will be carried on.
Inview of the constantly increasing interest in ornithology and the increasing difficulty in obtaining specimens, it seems highly desirable that more information should be accessible regarding the extent and character of the larger collections of the United States and Canada. The student would thus have a better idea as to what material is available while museums and individual collectors by making known their desiderata would perhaps be enabled to fill their gaps.
One important collection has just been completely checked up and at our request the owner, Mr. J. H. Fleming of Toronto, has kindly given us his figures. This is one of the largest private collections and covers the birds of the entire world—a most commendable feature. We learn that it comprises about 25,000 specimens representing 5,377 species and 1,925 genera, as recognized in Sharpe’s ‘Hand List.’ When we note that there are, according to this authority, some 17,000 species of birds and 2,647 genera, we realize that Mr. Fleming has about one third of the known species and three fourths of the genera represented, the latter being evidence of the painstaking care that he has exercised in bringing together this notable series of specimens.
Inthe Philadelphia Zoölogical Garden at the present time is a Naked-throated Bell-bird in full “song” if its peculiar calls may be so termed. These vocal efforts resemble exactly the strokes of a hammer on an anvil, the peculiar resonance of the ringing metal being perfectly reproduced.
There is also a specimen of the curious Kagu (Rhinochetus jubatus) ofNew Caledonia, the original type of which was sent to the Colonial Exhibition at Paris in 1860 by Mons. Latour, and described by Jules Verreaux. We do not know whether there are any specimens of this bird in any American Museum but there are none in either the U. S. National Museum or the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences.
The Kagu is closely related to the Sun Bittern (Eurypyga helias) though in appearance it looks more like a small pale gray heron. It is regarded as a very ancient and generalized type, with relationship to the Rails and Trumpeters.
We understand that another specimen is living in the New York Zoölogical Park.
Welearn from ‘The Emu’ that the annual meeting of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists’ Union was held in Melbourne, December 4, 1918, and was attended by eighteen members, exactly as many as were present at the business meeting of the A. O. U. in November. The officers elected were A. F. Basset Hull of Sydney, President; W. H. D. Le Soeuf, Hon. Secretary; Z. Gray, Hon. Treasurer; and Dr. J. A. Leach, Hon. Editor of ‘The Emu.’ The R. A. O. U. has had 39 members in military service of whom 5 lost their lives during the past year. The Union maintains a room at Temple Court in Melbourne where it keeps its library and collections including the celebrated White and Austin collections of Australian birds’ eggs. Well attended conversaziones are held at its room on the first Wednesday in each month and quarterly meetings at the National Museum. The report of the treasurer shows that the assets of the Union amount to over $9000.
Thecollection of birds in the U. S. National Museum has recently passed the 200,000 mark. This collection has doubled since 1884 when the number of specimens reached 100,000 (see ‘The Auk,’ 1884, p. 403). In this connection it is interesting to recall that the British Museum collection was said to have contained 500,000 specimens ten years ago (Ibis, 9th ser., II. Jub. Suppl. p. 4, 1909).
TheTreasurer reports that less than forty copies of the last edition of the ‘Check-List of North American Birds,’ published in 1910, now remain on hand. Members who have not secured copies should do so at once as libraries are constantly ordering the book and the stock will doubtless soon be exhausted. It will probably be several years before another edition of the ‘Check-List’ is issued.
Atthe recent session of Congress two new National Parks were established on areas previously set aside as National Monuments. These parks are the Grand Canyon in Arizona and the Lafayette National Park on Mt. Desert Island on the coast of Maine. The latter reservation was previously known as the Sieur de Monts National Monument. This actionwill insure greater protection of the wild life and we hope will result in the publication at an early date of information concerning the birds of these interesting regions.
Geographic Distribution of A. O. U. Membership.—As shown by the list published in this number of ‘The Auk’ the A. O. U. now has members in all of the states except three (Arkansas, Delaware and Mississippi), and also in Alaska, Hawaii, the Philippines and Samoa, as well as in all of the provinces of Canada except Alberta and Nova Scotia.
The foreign members, known as Honorary and Corresponding Fellows, number 85 and are widely distributed in all parts of the world. In America they are located in Cuba, Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia, Brazil, and Argentina; in Europe in all of the principal countries except Norway, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey and the Balkan States; and in Africa in South Rhodesia and Transvaal. The Union also has representatives in Ceylon, Japan, the Federated Malay States, British Papua, South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria.—T. S. P.
TheAmerican Game Protective Association, the sportsmen’s national organization, has done excellent work in branding as erroneous an Associated Press Dispatch to the effect that the Supreme Court at Washington has declared the Federal Migratory bird law unconstitutional. From their statement the country has been informed that “the so-called Federal Migratory bird law was repealed on July 3, 1917, when the President signed the Canadian treaty enabling act.” The new measure which superseded the old one is a better and bigger law with exactly the same object in view. It provides what the former law lacked, an efficient machinery for its enforcement, and the governments of this country and Canada are now squarely united in the protection of all the birds of the continent north of the Rio Grande.
“What happened at Washington was that the solicitor-general asked to have dismissed his own motion before the Supreme Court, which was to test the constitutionality of the original migratory bird law. It was no use arguing the case, because there is no longer any Weeks-McLean law.
“The federal regulations, therefore, which absolutely protect in this country the birds which are valuable to agriculture and which make open seasons for the migratory birds which are shot for sport, are still in effect and the Federal Department of Justice will vigorously prosecute any violations of these regulations.”
TheDelaware Valley Ornithological Club is endeavoring to collect all existing data bearing upon the birds of Eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. Information relative to any manuscript lists of early migration records, or published matter in out of the way places, will be gratefully received.
W. L. McAteewishes to announce that he has undertaken as a hobby the preparation of a dictionary of vernacular names applied to A. O. U. checklist birds. As the project involves the examination of practically the whole ornithological literature of America, the main purpose of this announcement is to elicit informationas to whether the field is clear. It would be a great waste of time to have the same ground covered by more than one person.
Mr. McAtee has been collecting data of this nature for many years, and has published two glossaries of unusual bird names. He has also recently had the good fortune to receive for examination, through the courtesy of Mrs. Gurdon Trumbull and Mr. Samuel Scoville, Jr., the manuscript notes prepared by Gurdon Trumbull, for a second edition of his “Names and Portraits of Birds.” Still more recently, Mrs. Trumbull has with the greatest generosity turned over to him this book together with all of Mr. Trumbull’s miscellaneous notes on the habits and names of birds. This material will eventually be deposited in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. Mr. McAtee will welcome suggestions relating to the whole project, and contributions, especially of unusual local names of birds.
TheDelaware Valley Ornithological Club held its twenty-ninth annual meeting at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia in January, 1919. Officers elected were President, J. Fletcher Street, Vice-President, George H. Stuart 3d, Secretary Julian K. Potter and Treasurer, Samuel C. Palmer. Thirteen meetings were held during the year with an average attendance of twenty-two. Twenty-seven members entered the National Service during the war and one, Archibald Benners, 1st Lieut. Marines, was killed July 3, 1918.