60 Inauguration of the 



to be one of the most important ever undertaken in the 

 Indian region. Like Dr. Steere he also visited many islands 

 not before trodden by an ornithologist, and obtained a large 

 number of beautiful novelties. 



Such is a brief retrospect, as far as our experience allows 

 us to make it, of the progress of oriental ornithology since 

 the year 1850, Avhen Mr. Gould issued his first part. Every 

 one must admit that it would be far easier now to attempt 

 such a work, although so vast is the extent of the Indian 

 region that each year records a large increase in our know- 

 ledge of Asiatic birds. It would almost seem as if we had 

 now once more reached a period of quiescence, such as super- 

 vened upon the publication of Horsfield and Moore^s ' Cata- 

 logue ' and Jerdon's ' Birds of India.' Let us hope that this 

 is not the case, and that Mr. Hume, who has done so much 

 for the increase of our knowledge of Indian birds, will not 

 allow his pen to remain dry, that Colonel Godwin-Austen 

 will, on the termination of his present important work on 

 Indian MoUusca, be induced to give us a connected catalogue 

 of the birds of North-eastern Bengal, that Captain Wardlaw 

 Ramsay will publish a catalogue of the Tweeddale collection, 

 and that Mr. Blanford will not allow his retirement from 

 India to interfere with the publication of his useful works 

 on the zoology of that portion of the globe. 



VIII. — Inauguration of the American Ornithologists* Union. 



On the 26ih of September last, in pursuance of the notice 

 reprinted in our last Number (Ibis, 1883, p. 580), a conven- 

 tion of American ornithologists was held in the Library of 

 the American Museum of Natural History, New York, to 

 organize an American Ornithologists' Union. We extract 

 the following account of the proceedings on this important 

 occasion from the * Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological 

 Club':— 



" This call was sent to a little less than fifty of the more 

 prominent ornithologists of the United States and Canada, 

 selected mainly in reference to their scientific standing, but 



