I I 6 Notes and Netas. [January 



At a meeting of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, held Dec. 2, 1884, the 

 annual election of officers was had, resulting in the re-election of the pres- 

 ent incumbents, except Vice-President J. A. Jeffries, absent in Europe' 

 The officers for 1S85 are as follows : President, William Brewster ; Vice- 

 President, W. A. Jeffries; Recording Secretary, Henry A. Purdie ; Cor- 

 responding Secretary, J. A. Allen; Treasurer, Charles F. Batchelder. 

 The meetings are held the first and third Tuesdays of each month, from 

 October to June, inclusive. At the December meetings papers were read 

 by Mr. Brewster, on 'Swainson's Warbler,' on 'The Heath Hen of Massa- 

 chusetts,' and on an interesting collection of birds made by Mr. F. 

 Stephens in Arizona; and by Mr. Allen on 'Sexual Selection and the 

 Nesting of Birds' ; and various briefer communications were made by 

 other members. 



At the December meeting of the Ridgway Ornithological Club, donations 

 of skins were announced from Mr. H. L. Fulton, and the following 

 papers were read : 'The Genus Helminthophaga,'' by Dr. Morris Gibbs ; 

 'The White-rumped Shrike' (impaling insects on barbed-wire fence), by 

 Geo. H. Ragsdale ; 'The Economic Structure of Birds' Crests,' by H. K. 

 Coale. 



Ornithologists will be interested to learn that the celebrated collec- 

 tion of Birds' eggs and nests, belonging to the well-known ornithologist, 

 Dr. A. C. E. Baldamus, of Coburg, Germany, is now offered for sale. This 

 collection is without doubt one of the richest of its kind in the world, 

 numbering nearly 2,000 species, and some 10,000 specimens. It is espec- 

 ially rich in the nests and eggs of European birds, and has been gathered 

 with the greatest care as regards identification and authentication. A 

 printed catalogue of the collection has been prepared, giving a list of the 

 species represented, and the number and character of the specimens of 

 each included. It is greatly to be hoped that the collection may be secured 

 for some museum in this country. 



In the October number of 'The Auk' its readers were invited, in behalf 

 of the A. O. U. Committee on the Nomenclature and Classification of 

 North American Birds, to notify the Editor of this Journal of their pref- 

 erences in respect to the names 'Junco' and 'Snowbird,' and 'Vireo' and 

 'Greenlet,' for the English designations of the species, respectively, of 

 the genera Jimco and Vireo. Twenty-four persons have responded, 

 as follows: For Junco, 18; for Snowbird, 6; for Vireo, 22; for Greenlet, 

 2. Several writers have given at length their reasons for preferring Junco 

 to Snowbird, besides the formal letter given in this issue in the depart- 

 ment of 'Correspondence.' 



