I lo Third Meeti7ig of the America?/ Ornithologists^ Union. [January 



personally urge the practical importance of the investigations 

 thus proposed, while Senator Warner Miller, Chairman of the 

 Committee on Agriculture, not only brought the memorial favor- 

 ably to the notice of the Committee on Agriculture, but afterward 

 made an influential speech in its behalf on the floor of the Sen- 

 ate, and secured for the work contemplated an appropriation of 

 $5000, after the item had been dropped in the House. It is thus 

 to Senator Miller that ornithologists are indebted more than to any 

 other person for the appropriation, as without his eflicient aid the 

 appeal to Congress would have been in vain. The House Com- 

 mittee on Agriculture, however, placed the work under the 

 Division of Entomology, instead of creating for it an independent 

 division, as contemplated in the memorial. 



The appropriation became available July 1. 1SS5, at which 

 time the investigations in Economic Ornithology now in progress 

 under the Department of Agriculture were begun. Tlie Council, 

 of the Union was invited by the Commissioner of Agriculture 

 and Professor Riley — in recognition of the interest in the woik 

 manifested by the Union, and of its efforts in securing the appro- 

 priation from Congress for these investigations — to nominate a per- 

 son to take charge of, and conduct, the work. This the Council 

 did at a meeting held in Washington on the 21st of last April, 

 unanimously and very fittingly selecting for this position the 

 Chairman of the A. O. U. Committee on the Migration and 

 Geographical Distribution of North American Birds, Dr. C. 

 Hart Alerriam, to wiiom also had fallen the labor of presenting 

 the memorial and securing favorable action upon it. These in- 

 vestigations, now" in progress under Government auspices, are 

 thus the direct outgrowth of the work of the Union, and espe- 

 cially of that of its Committee on the Migration and Distibution 

 of Birds. The vast amount of valuable material gathered by 

 this Committee has now been turned over by the Union to the 

 Department of Agriculture, for elaboration and publication ; and 

 the returns of the A. O. U. observers are now directly sent to 

 the Depai'tment of Agriculture, which defrays tlie considerable 

 expense necessarily involved in the prepailition, distribution, and 

 collection of the schedules, as well as the preparation of the re- 

 turns for publication. The very elaborate and voluminous report 

 prepared by Professor Cooke, with the assistance of Mr. Otto 

 Widmann and Prof. D. E. Lant/.. upon 'Bird Migi^ation in the 



