144 Bird -Lore 



in this field into more intimate association and more thoroughly con- 

 solidating their interests. The advantages of such consolidation 

 seemed so evident that a call was issued August i, 1883, dated Cam- 

 bridge and Washington, for "a convention of American Ornitholo- 

 gists, to be held in New York city, beginning September 26, 1883." 

 The call was signed by the editor of the ' Nuttall Bulletin' (J. A. 

 Allen), associate! editor of the 'Nuttall Bulletin' (Elliott Coues), and 

 the president of the Nuttall Club (William Brewster). The response 

 to the call, sent to forty-eight of the more prominent ornithologists of 

 the United States and Canada , was most cordial ; twenty-five ex- 

 pressed their intention to attend the convention, and twenty-one were 

 actually present, including several who came a thousand miles or 

 more to attend the convention. Not only were by-laws adopted and 

 officers duly elected, but, as will be noticed later, important lines of 

 work were laid out and assigned to committees, the principle of 

 cooperation being applied in a broad sense. * 



The Nuttall Ornithological Club is still an active and widely 

 known organization, although upon the founding of the Union, it 

 generously voted to discontinue its 'Bulletin' and to place its sub- 

 scription list and good will at the service of the Union, which was 

 already considering the desirability of establishing an official medium 

 of publication. As a result, the 'Nuttall Bulletin' became 'The 

 Auk,' which, in recognition of the generous action of the Nuttall 

 Club, was officiall}' designated as the sccoinf scries of the 'Nuttall 

 Bulletin.' 



Between isolated workers in any field, jealousies and misunderstand- 

 ings arise which personal contact tends to obliterate. Such was the 

 case with our ornithologists for some years prior to the founding of 

 the Union. There were two rival check-lists of North American 

 birds, each perhaps equally authoritative though differing in impor- 

 tant details, which led to confusion, and a tendency to array our 

 ornithologists into two somewhat hostile camps. This being recog- 

 nized as a threatening evil of considerable gravity, one of the first 

 acts of the Union was to appoint a committee on the Classification 

 and Nomenclature of North American Birds, so constituted as to 

 include the most competent authorities on the subject and at the 

 same time safeguard all conflicting interests. The work of this com- 

 mittee long since became a matter of history. It was conducted with 

 the utmost conscientiousness and care ; personal interests and personal 

 bias were generously waived, differences of opinion were settled by 

 appeal to facts and the evidence, with a result that agreement was 

 established in respect to all points of nomenclature and other tech- 

 nicalities, and a new impetus given to systematic investigation. Thus, 



