Vue hal | PautMER, Personalia in Ornithology. 451 
the A. O. U. In addition much material has appeared in the 
pages of “The Ibis,’ ‘London Field’ and other foreign journals and 
in foreign collections of biography all of which should be made 
accessible. 
This work should not be confined to members of the Union but 
should be extended at least to include all persons whose names are 
associated with systematic work on North American birds. Con- 
siderable material has already been collected along this line by the 
chairman of the committee. With the activity now displayed in 
the study of South American ornithology by several museums in 
this country it would undoubtedly be helpful to have as much 
information as possible relative to the work of those who have 
collected or described material from the wonderfully rich region 
south of Panama. 
It is rather remarkable that although biography forms such an 
important part of the literature in a general library, and so much 
has been published regarding the lives of workers in astronomy, 
botany, and medicine, such information concerning ornithologists 
is so scattered and in many cases so fragmentary. Particularly is 
this, true of American ornithologists only half a dozen of whom — 
Audubon, Bachman, Baird, Boardman, Scott, Wilson, and pos- 
sibly one or two others, have been considered sufficiently impor- 
tant to have special volumes devoted to their lives. Audubon and 
Wilson have each been the subject of several volumes, while the 
labors of such prominent workers as Dr. Coues and others are 
recorded only in memorial addresses or in brief sketches in journals 
or reviews. More attention has been paid to this subject in Eng- 
land and Germany where biographical information is published 
more fully and thus made more accessible. It is something more 
than mere gratification of curiosity to be able to find something 
about the work of ornithologists who have become eminent or whose 
labors are now finished. Although it may be interesting to know 
that Briinnich described the Loon (Gavia immer), and the genus 
Plautus for the Great Auk, and that his work is commemorated 
in the name of one of the species of murres, it is more important to 
know that Dr. Morton Thrane Briinnich, author of the genus con- 
taining the emblem of the A. O. U. was a contemporary of Lin- 
neus, that he was one of the leading Danish zoélogists and that he 
