HISTORICAL ACCOUNT ii 



were early summarized by Spencer Fullerton Baird, 

 writing in the American Journal of Science in 1866/ 

 and from that time increased steadily in volume 

 year by year. Tremendous impetus was given this 

 branch of ornithology by the formation of the Amer- 

 ican Ornithologists' Union. At its first congress, 

 held in New York City in September, 1883, there 

 was appointed a committee on the Migration of 

 Birds, with Dr. C. Hart Merriam of Locust Grove, 

 New York, as chairman. This committee began 

 active work immediately and during its first year, 

 through a corps of observers scattered through the 

 eastern half of the continent, assembled many data. 

 It was realized within a year that financial assistance 

 would be required to handle the rapidly growing 

 work, which led to a petition to Congress by the 

 Council of the Union, and resulted in the appropria- 

 tion of five thousand dollars for a Division of Eco- 

 nomic Ornithology under the United States De- 

 partment of Agriculture, estabHshed July i, 1885, 

 with Dr. Merriam as Chief. Though the scope of 

 the work undertaken by the new division rapidly 

 broadened into the present Biological Survey, study 

 of the migration of birds continued to receive its due 

 measure of attention. Professor Wells W. Cooke, 

 who had organized cooperative observation in the 



^ "The Distribution and Migrations of North American Birds"; 

 Amer. Journ. Set. ser. 2, vol. xli (1866), pp. 78-90, 184-192, 337-347» 



