SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS 



THE MEYER MEMORIAL MEDAL 



Frank N. Meyer was an agricultural explorer in the Office of For- 

 eign Seed and Plant Introduction, Bureau of Plant Industry, U. S. 

 Department of iVgriculture. For thirteen years he searched through 

 China, Turkestan and other parts of Asia, for plants which might be 

 valued additions to American agriculture and horticulture. When he 

 lost his life on the Yangtze River in 1918,' he left a bequest of a thousand 

 dollars to the staff of the Washington Office. The individuals of the 

 Office have put the bequest into a permanent tribute to his memory, 

 in the shape of a medal, designed by Theodore Spicer-Simson, which 

 is to be awarded for distinctive service in plant introduction. The 

 awards are to be made by the Council of the American Genetic Asso- 

 ciation. 



The first award was made on May 3, 1920, when the medal was 

 presented to Mr. Barbour Lathrop. Dr. David Fairchild, in behalf 

 of the Council, presented the medal. Mr. Lathrop had a large part 

 in the founding of the Office of Foreign Seed and Plant Introduction, 

 and has been intimately connected with it since. He and Dr. Fair- 

 child comprised one of the first exploration expeditions, and visited 

 the West Indies, South America, Europe, Egypt, India, Ceylon and the 

 East Indies. Many introductions now growing in this country were 

 secured on this and subsequent trips which Mr. Lathrop conducted 

 and financed. The first seed of the Egyptian cotton, the culture of 

 which now amounts to $20,000,000 a year in Arizona, was brought in 

 by them. The tropical mangos, now an industry in Florida; the Per- 

 sian Gulf dates, peculiarly successful in the Imperial Valley; Sumatra 

 wrapper tobacco, now famous in Connecticut; the first large collection 

 of Japanese flowering cherries; Rhodes grass, which has been called 

 the timothy of the South; and varieties of soy beans and the oriental 

 timber and edible bamboos of Japan, which are now represented by 

 groves in various parts of the South, were also secured. 



NOTES 



With a view to determining the exact routes followed by migratory 

 birds, their speed of travel, the causes of unusual movements by such 

 birds, and many other questions of interest to naturalists as well as to 

 the public, the Bureau of Biological Survey, U. S. Department of 

 Agriculture, has taken over the work heretofore carried on by the 

 American Bird Banding Association, which has headquarters at the 

 American Museum of Natural History, New York City. This work 

 includes the trapping of birds and the placing of identification bands 

 on their legs, after which the birds are released. Subsequent discovery 

 of these bands on trapped or dead birds is reported by the finders to 

 those in charge of the work. The Biological Survey asks the coopera- 



^ See This Journal, 8: 463. 1918. 9: 559. 1919. 



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