730 SCIENTIFIC RECORD FOR 1883. 



a rule, cause extreme and abrupt loss of spinal power. Finally, they 

 give rise to a wide range of secondary pathological appearances which 

 are absent from Heloderma poisoning." The poison of the lizard leaves 

 no trace of any local effect, but the heart is arrested in complete diastole, 

 and becomes full of firm black clots. The muscles (except the cardiac) 

 and nerves respond readily to irritants, "but the spinal cord has its 

 power annihilated abruptly and refuses to respond to the most powerful 

 electrical currents." 



Composition of snake-poisons.— The poison of snakes, especially of the 

 family of Crotalids, has been chemically and physiologically investi- 

 gated by Drs. S. Weir Mitchell and Reichert, of Philadelphia. They 

 succeeded in separating, from poison obtained from rattlesnakes and 

 moccasons, three different proteids, which they have proposed to dis- 

 tinguish severally as venom peptone, venom-globuline, and venom- 

 albumen. The details of these investigations are given in the Medical 

 News, of Philadelphia, for April 28, 1883. 



Birds. 



American Ornithologists' Union. — In response to a call of several of 

 America's most eminent ornithologists, Messrs. J. A. Allen, of Cam- 

 bridge, Elliott Coues, of Washington, and William Brewster, of Boston, 

 "sent to a little less than fifty of the more prominent ornithologists of 

 the United States and Canada," a meeting for organizing "the Ameri- 

 can Ornithologists' Union" was held at New York, on the 26th of Sep- 

 tember, 1883, and following days. The Union took as its exemplar 

 the "British Ornithologists' Union." Four classes of members were 

 recognized: (1) active, limited to fifty; (2) foreign, limited to twenty- 

 five; (3) corresponding, limited to one hundred; and (4) associate, to be 

 unlimited in number. Mr. J. A. Allen was elected president, Dr. E. 

 Coues and Mr. R. Ridgway vice-presidents, and Dr. C. Hart Merriam 

 secretary and treasurer. 



The Nuttall Ornithological Club transferred to the new Union its Bul- 

 letin, and this will therefore be discontinued as such. It is succeeded 

 by "The Auk" of the American Ornithologists' Union. The Union was 

 organized under happy and harmonious conditions, and much good to 

 ornithology may be expected from its activity. Its most important 

 promised work will be "a revision of the classification and nomen- 

 clature of North American Birds," for which a special committee was 

 appointed of five, viz, Messrs. Coues, Allen, Ridgway, Brewster, and 

 Henshaw. 



Cholera and Birds. — It has been claimed that there is a marked de- 

 crease in the number of birds in regions where cholera is for the time 

 raging, and this belief has been indorsed by a number of correspond- 

 ents in the columns of Nature. Exodus of birds from sundry places 

 afflicted with cholera has been recorded. Before the disease had fairly 





