rS8?'.] Notes and News. 83 



legitimate taxidermy, bat mainly and primarily to prevent destruction of 

 birds for millinery purposes. Conscientious, honest taxidermists, would 

 have no difficulty in obtaining permits to collect birds for scientific or 

 other legitimate purposes under the proposed law. It was certainly not 

 the intention of the committee to in any way impede or prohibit the 

 legitimate work of the taxidermist. He spoke in high praise of their 

 services to ornithology. He was sure no feeling of antagonism on the 

 part of the Union toward taxidermists as a class existed, but only against 

 certain obnoxious persons, who had rendered themselves so by their 

 wholesale slaughter of birds for gain, and who were not taxidermists in 

 any true sense. He had found taxidermists, as a rule, to have too much 

 of the spirit of the naturalist to be willing to become caterers to the 

 milliner. 



At the meeting of the Ridgway Ornithological Club held August 12, 

 1SS6, the following papers were read: 'Spring Notes from Cook and Lake 

 Counties, 111., and Lake Co., Ind.,' by Geo. L. Toppan; 'The Future of 

 American Ornithology,' by R. VV. Shufeldt. A number of donations of bird 

 skins, and eggs, and of ornithological literature, from Resident and Cor- 

 responding members were announced. At the meeting held September 9, 

 18S6, Mr. J. G. Parker, Jr., read a paper on the 'Ornithology of Sauk and 

 Columbia Counties, Wis.,' which he illustrated with skins of the rarer 

 species observed. At the meeting of October 14, iSS6. Mr. H. K. Coale 

 read a paper by Mr. Robert Ridgway entitled, 'List of the Birds found 

 breeding within the corporate limits of Mount Carmel, 111.' The subject 

 of publishing the proceedings of the Club was discussed and favorably 

 considered, and will be definitely decided at the next meeting. 



At a meeting of the California Academy of Sciences, held November 

 1, 1886, a paper was read by Mr. Walter Bryant on the 'Ornithology of 

 Guadalupe Island,' embodying the results of Mr. Bryant's ornithological 

 work during several months spent at this interesting locality. The paper 

 will soon be published in the Society's 'Bulletin.' 



The A. O. U. Committee on Bird Protection published its second 

 'Bulletin' on November 11, 1SS6, in 'Forest and Stream.' It was immedi- 

 ately issued separately as an eight-page pamphlet, uniform in size and 

 style with its 'Bulletin No. 1.' The present 'Bulletin' is devoted to 'Bird 

 Protection by Legislation,' and is especially intended for distribution 

 among the legislators of the different States, in the interest of securing 

 better and more nearly uniform legislation for the protection of birds. It 

 contains the recently enacted New York State law on this subject — essen- 

 tially the same as the law drafted by the A. O. U. Committee and pub- 

 lished in its first 'Bulletin' — -with extended explanatory comment respecting 

 the intent and scope of its leading provisions, some of which, owing to 

 obscure phraseology, had been fallaciously interpreted. This is followed 

 by a new draft by the Committee, amending in a few particulars their 

 former one, with which, however, it agrees in all essential features. The 

 age qualification of the former draft, and of the New York law, in refer- 



