° i9i5 J General Notes. 2S\) 



belongs to the western race, as probably all of the Gallatin County birds 

 of this species do. 



Pinicola enucleator alascensis. Alaska Pine Grosbeak. — Two 

 birds taken near Bozeman, December 21, 1908, have been sent to Mr. 

 Robert Ridgway for better identification, and are considered by him to 

 be the Rocky Mountain Pine Grosbeak, P. e. montana, and identical with 

 the summer birds of the region. 



The following new species may be added to the list through the observa- 

 tions of Mr. G. B. Thomas. 



Marila collaris. Ring-necked Duck. — Mr. Thomas secured two 

 birds of this species near Belgrade on October 10, 1912. They were male 

 and female and were from a flock of eight or nine birds. This is the first 

 record of this species from Montana of which I am aware. 



Anthus spraguei. Sprague's Pipit. — Mr. Thomas has written me 

 that he has seen this bird in Gallatin County, but I have been unable to 

 get from him the date or exact locality of this occurrence. — Aretas A. 

 Saunders, West Haven, Conn. 



What Bird Lovers Owe the Late Professor King.— Not the man 



who determines how many birds eat a certain insect, nor what one bird 

 eats, but the man who passes in review all the common birds of a given 

 region in his study of the proportions of the food, is entitled to rank as 

 pioneer in Economic Ornithology. On this basis it is proposed that the 

 late Professor F. H. King, formerly chief of the U. S. Division of Soils, 

 should be considered our first important Economic Ornithologist to use 

 modern methods in the United States. 1 



Many men had previously examined the food of a single species of bird 

 in different parts of the country. Professor Samuel Aughey of Nebraska, 

 from 1865 to 1877, studied the stomachs of Nebraska birds in relation to the 

 number of locusts they consumed. However, not until the time of Pro- 

 fessors S. A. Forbes of Illinois and F. H. King of Wisconsin, had anyone 

 made a study of all the common bird species in order to record all the types 

 of insects which birds ate. Dr. Forbes' studies of birds' stomachs were 

 first published in 1876, according to a letter from him, dated October 15, 

 1912. 



In an interview at the Cleveland meetings of the American Association 

 for the Advancement of Science, December 31, 1912, Professor Forbes ad- 

 mitted that the work for this paper was all done in that or the preceding 

 year, while Professor King began his paper in July, 1873, and continued it 

 until October, 1877, the field work being done mostly in 1873-4. In 

 1876-8, according to a letter from Prof. J. H. Comstock, 1912, Professor 

 King worked in the Cornell laboratory, analyzing the contents of the birds' 



1 Cf. Review of Economic Ornithology in the United States by T. S. Palmer, 

 Asst. Chief of the Biol. Survey, U. S. Dept. Agric. Yearbook for 1899. Here 

 older authors are ranked as pioneers in the study of the food in birds' stomachs. 



