1SS7.J Notes and News. I 75 



The bill authorizing an appropriation of $400,000 by the City of New 

 York for the construction of an addition to the American Museum of Nat- 

 ural History building has passed both branches of the New York State 

 legislature almost unanimously and has become a law. The addition will 

 be at the 77th Street end of the present structure, and will be of about the 

 same size as the portion already constructed. It is expected that work on 

 the proposed addition will he begun at an early day. 



Two numbers of a new monthly journal, called 'The Audubon Magazine,' 

 have appealed. It is "published in the interest of the Audubon Society 

 for the Protection of Birds," by the 'Forest and Stream' Publishing Com- 

 pany of New York. Besides being a medium of communication between 

 the friends of Bird Protection, it is intended to interest the young in the 

 general subject of natural history, giving, however, special prominence 

 to ornithology. Its purposes are excellent, and, under the editorial super- 

 vision of Dr. George Bird Grinnell, it promises to become a very acceptable 

 and useful popular journal, covering essentially a new field, where much 

 good may be accomplished. 



Another very promising addition to periodical literature devoted to 

 popularizing natural history is 'The Swiss Cross,' the new official organ 

 of the Agassiz Association. It is a monthly, edited by Harlan H. Bal- 

 lard. President of the Agassiz Association, and published by N. D. C. 

 Hodges (the editor of 'Science'), at 47 Lafayette Place, New York. It is 

 "devoted to spreading among the people an accurate knowledge of 

 nature." Three numbers have already appeared. 



That the interest in the subject of Bird Protection is earnest and wide- 

 spread is evinced by the number of journals which are springing up de- 

 voted more or less exclusively to the support of the movement. Besides 

 'The Audubon Magazine,' noticed above, we have received three numbers 

 (Jan. -March, 1887) of a monthly journal entitled 'The Bird Call,' publish- 

 ed by the Pennsylvania Audubon Society, Miss A. C. Knight, President, 

 No. 1012 Walnut Street, Philadelphia. This Society was organized in 

 April, 1S86, and duly incorporated the following August. 'The Bird Call' 

 is issued in aid of the humane work of the Society — "to plead for mercy 

 to God's messengers of beauty, use, and song," and to aid in "the cam- 

 paign against the mandates of a cruel and senseless fashion." We wish 

 'The Bird Call' every success in its good work. 



Mk. C. J. Maynard has issued a prospectus of 'Illustrations and De- 

 scription of the Birds of the Bahamas.' The work is to be large folio in 

 size, and published in from fifteen to twenty parts, monographic in char- 

 acter. Each part is intended to be "an exhaustive treatise of the species 

 under consideration, complete in itself," and will contain a colored plate 

 and an uncolored one, the latter devoted to the osteological and other 

 anatomical details described in the accompanying text, which will include 

 biographical as well as technical matter. The first part, announced as 



