39° Notes tiiid News. [October 



At the September meeting of the Ridgway Ornithological Club of 

 Chicago, Dr. Alfred Dahlberg was elected to membership, and a paper by 

 Mr. F. L. Grundvig, entitled 'Notes on the Habits of the Birds of Outa- 

 gamie County,. Wis.,' was read. 



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

 North American Birds are pleased to believe that the results of their labors 

 will soon be accessible to the public. Their report, the character of which 

 has already been indicated (see anted, pp. 318), will form an octavo vol- 

 ume of about 300 pages, and will doubtless be on sale by December 

 1, and possibly at the time of the annual meeting of the Union in 

 November. Information as to price, etc., may be found in the advertise- 

 ment pages of the present number of 'The Auk.' 



Under the title 'A Nomenclature of Colors for the use of Naturalists, 

 and a Compendium of Useful Knowledge for Ornithologists,' Mr. Robert 

 Ridgway has prepared a work, shortly to be published by Little, Brown 

 & Co., of Boston, that cannot fail to be of great convenience and useful- 

 ness to naturalists in general, and ornithologists in particular. The 

 work will make an octavo volume of about 150 pages, illustrated by ten 

 colored plates, and several others of outline figures, uncolored. It con- 

 sists, as the title indicates, of two parts; the first, 'Nomenclature of 

 Colors.' embracing a general dissertation on the principles of color, a 

 chapter of useful hints on the technique of the subject, and an extensive 

 vocabulary of colors, as designated in most of the current European lan- 

 guages. The second part, or ' Ornithologists' Compendium,' includes a 

 glossary of terms used in descriptive ornithology, a comparative scale of 

 standard systems of linear measurement, as the English and the decimal, 

 and tables showing the equivalent of the English inch and its subdivisions 

 in centimeters. The plates, besides representing, with their names, nearly 

 two hundred more or less distinct tints, give the outlines of the principal 

 forms of color-making, outline figures of egg-contours, and details of the 

 external anatomy of birds, with reference to the terms used in descriptive 

 ornithology. The work is the result of years of labor on the part of the 

 author, whose fitness for the task, both as an artist and an ornithologist. 

 is too well known to require comment. The need of a work of just this 

 unique and useful character has long been felt by all working naturalists, 

 and its appearance will doubtless be welcomed as a valuable boon. 



The Smithsonian Institution has recently accepted for publication from 

 Dr. R. W. Shufeldt, U. S. A., a collection of memoirs on the osteology 

 of birds. They will make an octavo volume of some ^oo pages, illustrated 

 with iS lithographic plates and nearly 200 cuts in the text, forming by far 

 the most extensive publication on this subject this country has yet pro- 

 duced. Collectively these memoirs will be entitled ' Contributions to the 

 Anatomy of North American Vertebrates.' The first is on the osteology 

 of Circus, and is intended as an introduction to the osteology of the North 



