90 



THE OSPREY. 



THE OSPREY. 



An Illustrated Magazine of Popular Ornithology 

 Published Monthly except in July and August 



EDITED BY 



WALTER ADAMS JOHNSON 



ASSOCIATED WITH 



Dr. ELLIOTT COUES 



Subscription: In the United States, Canada and Mexico, One 

 Dollar a year, in advance. Single Copies. Ten Cents. 



Foreign Subscription: One Dollar and Twenty-five Cents. 

 Postage paid to all countries in the Postal Union. 



British agent: Frank A. Arnold, Mersham, Surrey, England. 



Advertising rates sent on request. 



Official Organ Cooper Ornithological Club of the Pacific Coast. 



Notes and News of a relevant nature, and original contribu- 

 tions are respectfully solicited, and should be addressed to 

 the editor at the ofiice of publication. 



Copyright, 1897, by The Osprey Company. 



THE OSPREY COMPANY. 



Removed December, 1S97, from Galesburg, III. to 



141 East 25TH Street, - - - - New York City. 



EDITORIAL NOTES. 



We take particular pride in presenting in this 

 number the portrait of William Brewster ; it is the 

 first time the portrait of one of the greatest of 

 American ornithologists has appeared in print. Mr. 

 Brewster was born in South Reading, (now Wake- 

 field) Mass , July 5, 1851. His parents moved to 

 Cambridge the following year and he has lived there 

 ever since. His interest in birds dates back as far 

 as he can remember. At the age of nine years he 

 was first permitted to use a gun and in the year 1862 

 he began his collection of birds. During the next 

 seven years he shot and preserved 500 birds, taking 

 only two or three of a kind and mounting all of 

 them. The greater part of this collection was de- 

 stroyed by insects, but it was afterwards replaced by 

 an equal number of much better mounted specimens, 

 taken between 1870 and 1876. This collection is still 

 in Mr. Brewster's possession. In i86g he learned from 

 Mr. C. J. Maynard the art of making 'skins' and 

 the importance of accumulating them in series suffi- 

 ciently large to represent the geographical, as well as 

 age and seasonal, variations to which most species of 

 birds are subject. From i86g to 1890 he was con- 

 stantly and very busily engaged in building up the 

 grand collection now in the private museum at 

 Cambridge. Fortunately he has not been hampered 

 by lack of means and he has been able to pursue his 

 chosen work constantly ; his specimens are secured 

 by personal labor afield, purchase and exchange. 

 The collection now numbers 40,000 specimens, all of 

 which are from North America (including Northern 

 Mexico and Lower California) and all but about 500 

 specimens are in the form of ' skins. ' Since 1890 he 

 has given most of his attention to studying living birds 

 and their ways, and has used the gun sparingly. Mr. 

 Brewster is an Honorary Life or Corresponding 

 Member of numerous scientific societies. At the 

 Annual Congress of the American Ornithologist's 

 Union last November he was elected to the Presidency 

 of the union for the third term. The portrait which 

 we present as frontispiece was taken in 1883. The 

 interesting photograph of Mr. Brewster at Pine 

 Point Camp, Lake Umbagog, Me., which might be 

 labeled "With the Wood Ducks," was taken Sept. 

 16, 1895. 



The large collection of birds and eggs owned and 

 mostly collected by the late Dr. William Wood of 

 East Winsor Hill, Conn., lately presented by his heirs 

 to the Hartford Scientific Society, was recently first 

 opened to the public in the Wadsworth Athenaeum 

 at Hartford. The services of Mr. Frank M. Chapman 

 were secured on the opening evening ; he discoursed 

 on 'Our Common Birds' before a large audience, and 

 illustrated most of the more or less common Connect- 

 icut birds on the screen, speaking of them in a way to 

 most interest the large audience gathered there. 



We here take pleasure in presenting a portrait that 

 we know will be of interest to many of our readers, 

 and not only those of California and the West where 

 it will be received with joy; it is that of Mr. Henry 

 Reed Taylor. Mr. Taylor has been prominent in 

 the field of amateur ornithology for ten years or 

 more, and for four years published that excellent 

 magazine of amateur ornithology, 'The Nidologist.' 

 Mr. Taylor is the son of the famous Bishop Taylor, 

 of Africa, and he himself first saw light on the dark 

 continent. But Mr. Taylor managed to see well in 

 the dark, and now holds a high position on one of the 

 large daily newspapers of San Francisco. He resides 

 in Alameda, across the bay from San Francisco. 



Mr. Sidney S. Wilson of St. Joseph, Mo., has pro- 

 cured a camera and is practicing photography, pre- 

 paratory to a trip into New Mexico in the coming 

 summer months. Mr. Wilson says that this spring 

 he will try to secure a photograph of a Swift breaking 

 off twigs. Mr. Wilson has just discovered that Audu- 

 bon says the Swift breaks off twigs with its feet. 



A new bird-book will be published soon by Hough- 

 ton, Mifflin & Co. It is entitled 'Birds of Village 

 and Field,' and in it Miss Florence A. Merriam, au- 

 thor of 'Birds Through an Opera Glass' and ' A- 

 birding on a Bronco,' describes 154 different birds, 

 with nearly 300 illustrations. 



Mr. Edwin S. Bryant, the well-known field natural- 

 ist, is spending the winter in Lansing, Mich. In April 

 he will go west into Montana and Idaho, and does 

 not expect to return for two years. He may visit 

 Alaska before his return. 



Dr. Coues has lately been appointed a member of 

 the Committee of Patronage of the International 

 Congress of Zoology which meets at Cambridge, Eng- 

 land, on August 23, 1898, under the presidency of Sir 

 John Lubbock. 



