21 



NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 



American Society of Mammalocists. The 

 organization meeting of the American Society of 

 Mammalogists was held in the New National 

 Museum, Washington, D.C., April 3 and 4. 1919, 

 with a charter membership of over two hundred 

 and fifty, of whom sixty were in attendance at the 

 meeting. The following officers were elected: 



President, C. Hart Merriam (Washington) ; 

 First Vice-President, E. W. Nelson (Washington) ; 

 Second Vice-President, Wilfrid H. Osgood (Chi- 

 cago) ; Recording Secretary, H. H. Lane (Okla- 

 homa) ; Corresponding Secretary, Hartley T. H. 

 Jackson (Washington) ; Treasurer, Walter P. 

 Taylor (Washington). The Councilors are: Glover 

 M. Allen (Cambridge) ; R. M. Anderson (Ottawa, 

 Canada); J. Grinnell (Berkeley); M. W. Lyon 

 (Washington); W. D. Matthew (New York); 

 John C. Merriam (Berkeley) ; Gerrit S. Miller, Jr., 

 (Washington) ; T. S. Palmer (Washington) ; 

 Edward A. Preble (Washington) ; Witmer Stone 

 (Philadelphia); and N. Hollister (Washington), 

 Editor. 



Committees were appointed on: Life Histories 

 of Mammals, Charles C. Adams, Chairman; Study 

 of Game Mammals, Charles Sheldon, Chairman; 

 Anatomy and Phylogeny, W. K. Gregory, Chair- 

 man; and Bibliography, T. S. Palmer, Chairman. 



The policy of the Society will be to devote its 

 attention to the study of mammals in a broad way, 

 including life histories, habits, evolution, palaeonto- 

 logy, relations to plants and animals, anatomy and 

 other phases. The Society arranged to start the pub- 

 lication this year of a "Journal of Mammalogy," in 

 which popular as well as technical matter will be 

 presented. This journal will fill a long felt want 

 in the natural history world, for with all the pub- 

 lications dealing with bird life on this hemisphere, 

 there h?s been none making a specialty of the no 

 less interesting and important mammalian life. 



In choosing the name of the Society, the word 

 American is used in the broad sense of including 

 all the Americas, North as well as South. Canada 

 was represented at the organization meeting by two 

 men, and several Canadians appear among the 

 charter members. The Society starts out demo- 

 cratically, with but one class of members, the gen- 

 eral concensus of opinion being that the establish- 

 ment of fellows and different classes of members 

 would not be conducive to the good feeling and 

 harmony desirable in a society of scientific aims. 

 The Society invites the co-operation and support 

 of all persons in the study and conservation of the 

 mammalian life of America. 



Remarks Concerning Sand Launces. There 

 has recently been received for identification by the 

 Fisheries Branch of the Department of the Naval 

 Service a number of small specimens of Sand 

 Launce (Ammod^les personatus) obtained from 

 Barclay and Clayoquot Sounds, British Columbia. 



The genus Ammo(i^)ies is represented on our 

 coasts by three reported species m all, and all of 

 which inhabit sandy shores. 



The geographical ranges of the three are as 

 follows: 



A. personatus: Shores of the Pacific from Cali- 

 fornia to Alaska, embracing British Columbia and 

 the Aleutian Islands and westward to Japan. (This 

 is the species of which the Department received 

 specimens.) 



A. americanus : Maritime Provinces, Gaspe 

 Basin, Labrador and Newfoundland, southward to 

 Cap:; Hatteras, North Carolina. 



A. dubius: Labrador and Greenland, southward 

 to Cape Cod. (As its name implies this is a 

 doubtful species, and was first recorded by Rein- 

 hardt in 1838.) 



Altogether there are about eight different species 

 of sand launces, of which, besides our own, may 

 be mentioned A. lanceolatus and A. tobianus, both 

 of which occur on the British coasts. 



Andrew Halkett. 



THE mountain BLUE BIRD, AND ITS IRREGULAR 

 APPEARANCE. Every observer of birds has noticed 

 the abundance or scarcity of certain varieties in 

 different years, and the reason of this periodical 

 variation in appearance is often hard to account for. 

 There are several birds that come under this class 

 in Alberta, and perhaps the most prominent of these 

 is the Blue Bird, (ours is the Mountain variety 

 Sialia currucoides.) 



The winter of 1917-18 was quite severe up 

 till about the middle of March, when it turned very 

 mild and spring like. On the 21st of the month 

 I was very much surprised to see three Blue Bird 

 flying along the telephone wires on one of the prin- 

 cipal streets of Camrose. This was fully two 

 weeks earlier that I had ever recorded them before 

 in my twenty-eight years residence in Alberta. 



A few days later the weather turned suddenly 

 cold, and the month ended with below zero tem- 

 peratures. The cold extended into Montana, be- 

 tween 200 and 300 miles south of this latitude. 

 There is reason to believe that these three birds 

 were not the only ones to come north around the 

 21st of the month, and it is likely that a large mi- 

 gration took place at that time. The cold weather 



