®I|0 Journal 



uf tljf 



Mtxxnt QPrttitiinlngiral ^ort^ty 



Published by the Society on the first of March, June, September and December 

 Vol. XI SEPTEMBER, 1909 No. 3 



Reprint of Some of the Ornithological Papers of 

 Sylvester B. Beckett. 



(With a portrait.) 

 A. H. Norton, Portland. 



The present paper contains nothing original, or new. Its rea- 

 son for appearing in the pages of The Journat, is to put in an 

 accessible place certain papers already in print, but practically 

 beyond the reach of students of the literature of Maine birds. 

 These papers were contributed at meetings of the Portland Society 

 of Natural History at different times, and were printed in the Port- 

 land newspapers. One is impressed with the fact that they appear 

 in the third person, and that they may not be what Mr. Beckett 

 would accept as his statements. Examination of the Society's rec- 

 ords, kept by Mr. Beckett himself, mentions these papers invari- 

 ably in the third person. A set of clippings of reports of the meet- 

 ings of the society, prepared during Mr. Beckett's life by Dr. Wm. 

 Wood, his associate and long-time president of the Society, from 

 which these articles are copied, shows no corrections. The writer 

 has hesitated about bringing these papers forward, particularly 



