82 NEW YORK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY 
DEPARTMENT OF BIRDS. 
William Beebe, Curator; Lee S. Crandall, Assistant Curator; 
Samuel Stacey, Head Keeper. 
Since the writing of the report of the Department of Birds 
for 1915, conditions in the bird market have not improved. We 
feel, therefore, that we are fortunate to be able to state that 
since that time the collections, either in species or specimens, 
have not diminished. In former years, we were almost entirely 
dependent on importations from Europe, for the up-keep of the 
collections. Asiatic, African and Australasian forms reached 
us from that source, and far more South American species came 
by the roundabout way of Hamburg, than by the more direct 
route. The opening of hostilities in 1914 put a very effectual 
damper on such shipments, and the meager supply which has 
continued to dribble through via Rotterdam and London, has 
constantly diminished. The recent act prohibiting the impor- 
tation of live birds into England has proved so stringent that 
this traffic now is practically ended. 
Fortunately, however, the throttling of the live bird trade 
has been gradual, so that we have been able to develop new arte- 
ries of supply, as the old ones grew weaker. South America, 
principally through the Tropical Research Station, as well as by 
other means, has been successfully tapped. Australia, whose 
avifauna ordinarily has been obtainable only on rare occasions, 
can at present find a foreign market nowhere except in America. 
It thus happens that, while we still retain a representative col- 
lection of the birds of the world, including those of our own 
country, we are particularly rich in the species of South America 
and Australia. 
From the Tropical Research Station, located in the hinter- 
land of British Guiana, we have received a steady supply of 
valuable acquistions. Besides numbers of the more usual spe- 
cies, the shipments included a fine adult male cock-of-the-rock, 
(Rupicola rupicola) in the full magnificence of orange plumage; 
a pompadour cotinga, (Xipholena punicea), probably never be- 
fore exhibited alive; three white-necked rails, (Porzana albicol- 
lis) ; several dusky parrots, (Pionus fuscus), and a lavendar jay, 
(Cyanocorax cauanus). 
From a professional collector, we received a pair each of 
the picine woodhewer, (Dendroplex picinus), and the white- 
