118 



THE OSPREY. 



THE OSPREY. 



An Illustrated Magazine of Popular Ornithology 

 Published Monthly except in July and August 



EDITED BV 



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 office of publication. 



Copyright, 1897, by The Osprey Co. Entered as second-class 

 mail matter at the New York, N.Y., Postoffice, March 2, 1898. 



THE OSPREY COMPANY, 



Removed December, 1897, from Galesburg, 111. to 



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



EDITORIAL NOTES. 



Much interest has been aroused in regards to the 

 bill that Senator Hoar, with his unflagging interest 

 in the protection of birds, has introduced into Con- 

 gress. The bill prohibits the importation into the 

 United States of feathers and parts of birds for 

 ornamental purposes, and trade in such articles, be- 

 tween the States is also forbidden. The penalty im- 

 posed for each offense is a fine of $50. Of course 

 birds for museums, zoological gardens and scientific 

 collections are not embraced in the bill, nor are live 

 birds or feathers taken from live birds without injury 

 to the bird. As the bill now stands it has passed the 

 Senate and Senator Hoar states in a recent letter to 

 The Osprev that the friends of the bill will get 

 it up before the House of Representatives as soon as 

 possible. He also states that importers of bird 

 plumage and milliners have organized a powerful 

 lobby to defeat the passage of the bill in the House. 

 In New York the importers of bird plumage have 

 held a meeting and adopted resolutions which were 

 sent to the New York Representatives in Congress 

 and also to Chairman Dingley of the Ways and 

 Means Committee, to which the bill will probably be 

 referred. The resolutions speak of the large amount 

 of money annually invested in the business, and claim 

 that 20,000 persons in New York alone would be de- 

 prived of employment. Further they believe the pas 

 sage of such a measure will decrease very materially 

 the revenue of the nation at a time when such funds 

 are most needed for meeting a great increase in the 

 expenses of the Government owing to international 

 complications. It is to be hoped that the action of 

 Congress will not be influenced by these arguments 

 in regard to this field for labor and capital, and the 

 thought that the Government wishes revenue at the 

 expense of the birds is positively ludicrous. 



Mr, Cecil F. Underwood, Chief Taxidermist of the 

 National Museum of Costa Rica, was recently in 

 New York City and is now in Europe, where he will 

 visit the great Museums in order to become familiar 

 with the new and improved methods in the art of 

 taxidermy. It was nine years ago when Mr. Under- 

 wood went to Costa Rica as a naturalist in quest of 

 specimens. Since he has become Chief Taxidermist 



in their National Museum, the Costa Rican govern- 

 ment has manifested much interest in his work and 

 sometime ago presented him with a gold medal, and 

 in the present trip they are giving him every advan- 

 tage that he may present a plan for their natural 

 history exhibit at the Paris Exposition of igoo, in 

 which Costa Rica wishes to take a prominent part. 



The Frank B. Webster Co. is organizing a party 

 to sail in June for Labrador, Hudson's ISay, and 

 the Arctic regions, returning in about three months. 

 The trip is to be made in the clipper schooner, Ethel 

 B. Jacobs, of the Gloucester fishing fleet. Captain 

 Jacobs, the commander of the expedition, is said to 

 be well acquainted with the coasts of the regions to 

 be visited, and is on friendly terms with many of the 

 Indian and Eskimo chiefs. 



Mr. James Newton Baskett is primarily a natur- 

 alist, so when he has written a novel it contains a 

 nature story, with all the reality and freshness with 

 which he is wont to write them, woven into its simple 

 and charming narrative. Mr. Baskett's new novel is 

 entitled ' At You All's House,' and the scene is laid in 

 a little country village in Missouri. It will be pub- 

 lished at an early date by the Macmillan Company. 



A large number of drawings and paintings by the 

 late W. Hamilton Gibson were recently exhibited, 

 previous to their sale, at the galleries of the Ameri- 

 can Art Company in New York City. Among them 

 were those reproduced in this number of The Osprey. 

 About sixty of Gibson's original drawings have also 

 been purchased for the departments of science and 

 art of the Teachers' College, New York. 



Owing to the many requests for lists and prices of 

 back numbers of The Osprev, we are led to give a 

 complete price list of them for the convenience of 

 those who now lack numbers to complete their files. 

 It has become necessary to raise the price of the back 

 numbers of the present volume as their sale threatens 

 to soon exhaust the supply. 



In the November O.sprev Mr. William T. Horna- 

 day wrote 'Missionary Work for Ornithologists;' in 

 this number he writes ' Missionary Work by Orni- 

 thologists,' disclosing what The Osprev's readers 

 have done in the way of supplying the Public Schools 

 of lower New York with much needed natural history 

 specimens. 



The Illinois Audubon Society has lately elected 

 the well known ornithologist and member of the 

 counsel of the American Ornithologists' Union, Mr. 

 Ruthven Deane, to the office of President of their 

 organization. 



Mr. Joseph Grinnell of Pasadena, Cal., is leaving 

 for a two years' trip to Kotzebue Sound, Alaska. He 

 is one of the very few that go to Alaska this spring 

 solely in the interests of natural history. 



Professor A. E. Verrill, of Yale University, and a 

 party of students have gone to the Bermuda Islands 

 to study and collect specimens which will be depos- 

 ited in the Peabody Museum. 



Mr. C. C. Young of Brooklyn has sent home from 

 Dutch Guiana, where he has been collecting for two 

 months past, over 100 specimens of birds of a large 

 variety of species. 



Mr. Harold Heath, now fellow of biology at Uni- 

 versity of Pennsylvania, has been appointed assistant 

 professor of zoology in Stanford University. 



A bill is before Congress appropriating $25,000 for 

 the purchase of land to be added to the National 

 Zoological Park, Washington, D. C. 



