Ornithologists' Club. ' 151 



are now so well known as the United States of America. In 

 every part of the Union collections have been made by the 

 correspondents and emis-saries of the A.O.U. and transmitted 

 to headquarters, where the specimens have been studied and 

 the results recorded with the utmost diligence. Of late years 

 the American ornithologists have extended their researches 

 into Mexico and Central America. They have also closely 

 surveyed nearly every island of the West Indian Archipelago, 

 and have begun to make winter excursions into the northern 

 borders of South America. On looking into the 14tli volume 

 of ' The Auk,' which contains the memoirs published in 1897, 

 we find articles on the birds of Mexico, Guatemala, the Kurile 

 Islands, Venezuela, and Alaska, not to speak of numerous 

 valuable contributions to the study of such questions as 

 nesting-habits, dichromatism, nomenclature, abnormal plu- 

 mages, and almost every other subject that comes within tlie 

 grasp of the ornithologist. I may also, perhaps, venture to 

 call special attention to the valuable criticisms on recent 

 literature given in every nuniber of 'The Auk,' which may 

 be always read with profit, even though we may not altogether 

 coincide witb the views of the writers. 



" Having said so much about the three principal ornitho- 

 logical journals which at the present epoch are devoted to 

 general Ornithology — i. e. to the whole subject, and not to 

 any particular part of it, — I think I need hardly trouble you 

 with disquisitions on the recent progress of journals with a 

 less extended object. There are a considerable number of 

 such publications, as a search in the well-stocked library of 

 the Zoological Society will show to those who wish to consult 

 them; and many of them are making valuable contributions 

 to the knowledge of our favourite science. Among these I 

 may specially mention ' Ornis,' the organ of the Permanent 

 International Ornithological Committee, hitherto edited by 

 Pi'of. Dr. H. Blasius, and published at Brunswick (it is now 

 in its ninth year of publication) ; the ' Ornithologisches 

 Jahrbuch ' of Victor, Hitter von Tschusi zu Schmidhofien, 

 published at Hallein, now in its eiglrth year; and ' Aquila,' 

 the organ of the Hungarian Central Bureau for Ornithological 



