Bii/It'ti)i No. 2j. 29 



Judging from the effect of the extremely cold wave of the last week of 

 January and the first week of February, 1895, when the Bluebirds were 

 almost exterminated, it would be fair to suppose that the even colder 

 weather of the first and second weeks of February just past, would 

 have finished them. As indicated elsewhere in this issue, however, it 

 will be seen that Bluebirds were very much in evidence in Lorain 

 County, Ohio, on March 11. They have been fairly common in many- 

 places in the county during the greater part of March. It would seem 

 that the survivors of 1895, being the fittest to survi\'e, produced a race of 

 hardier birds which found the recent extreme cold scarcely an incon- 

 venience. Let us hope that they will survive unnumbered winters. 



The signs bf returning prosperity are more and more manifest in our 

 chosen field of science as well as in thje industrial world. The many 

 different organizations for the study of birds, state and otherwise, are 

 publishing their own records Thus the Maine Ornithological Society 

 contributes to the science thru its quarterly "Journal" of ten pages. 

 The Cooper Ornithological Club likewise finds its sixteen-page illustrated 

 bi-monthly "Bulletin" a far greater satisfaction than a few pages in some 

 other publication. The publication of the Michigan and Iowa organiza- 

 tions continue to improve. "Bird Lore," under the editorship of Mr. 

 Frank M. Chapman and management of the Macmillan Company, enters 

 the field as the champion of bird protection, and has the promise of a 

 wide circulation and a useful mission. The growing numbers of these 

 publications exclusively devoted to Ornithology indicate a growing con- 

 ception of the need of earnest, careful, discriminating study of the 

 whole field. It is well so. 



In Foresl and Stream for February 25, 1899, we notice an article 

 by our fellow member, Mr. Benj. T. Gault, in which the Crow figures as 

 a nest robber of the Prairie Hen, and of many other birds. It seems 

 hard to believe, sometimes, that the black side of the Crow character is 

 not more prominent than the other side. 



PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED. 



.Wtc' Mallopliai^-a, 11/. Comprising Mallophaga from birds of 

 Panama, i^aja California and Alaska, by Vernon L. Kellogg. 



