66 NEW YORK ZOOLOGICAL, SOCIETY 
macavuanna macaw, lesser yellow-headed blackbirds, and salta- 
tor and blue tanagers. 
The second acquisition of note was a large lot of birds ac- 
quired by direct importation from Mexico. The names of tree- 
partridges, anis, motmot, green kingfishers, golden-fronted wood- 
peckers, limpkin, phainopeplas, ptilogonys, and yellow-crowned 
night heron, will show what interesting birds are included in this 
lot. A number of these, indeed, are species which have never be- 
fore been kept in captivity, and the study of their habits is yield- 
ing facts of great popular and scientific interest. 
Among other birds obtained during the year, a number are 
well worthy of especial mention here. The most important were 
the one-wattled cassowary, North African ostrich, white rhea, 
giant whydah, golden oriole, Lawrence warbler, Douglas quail, 
trumpeter, bell-bird, guira cuckoo, chopi, boat-tail and aztec Jay. 
While the collection as a whole contains birds representative 
of every country in the world, yet the splendid avifauna of our 
own hemisphere is becoming dominant, and rightly so, for of 
many of these birds but little is known, and both in showy ap- 
pearance and interesting ways they are of prime importance. 
A good-sized flock of turkey and black vultures has been se- 
cured, and the experiment of acclimatizing these birds will soon 
be under way. 
Every available moment which could be spared from routine 
work and supervision of the management of the department, has 
been devoted by the Curator to scientific work. Zoologica, No. 2, 
is almost ready for the press, and will be entitled,“ A Contribution 
to the Ornithology of the Eastern Coast of Venezuela.” 
An abstract of the Curator’s reasearches in color changes was 
published in the American Naturalist for January, 1908, under 
the heading of “A Preliminary Report on an Investigation of the 
Seasonable Changes of Color in Birds.” 
A forty-thousand-word manuscript has been made ready for 
the printer, dealing with the general treatment of birds in cap- 
tivity, and embracing a digest of the knowledge gained during 
the care of our bird collections during the past ten years. This 
will appear in the volume soon to be published by the Society on 
the care of animals in captivity. 
A special subscription of $250, from Mrs. Frank K. Sturgis, 
to be devoted to experimental research, has been of the greatest 
assistance to Mr. Beebe. 
In addition to the investigation of the meaning and cause of 
color, researches in structural comparative anatomy and embry- 
