o4b Notes and News. lApril 



NOTES AND NEWS 



James Melville Macoun, C. M. G., F. L. S., and chief of the Bio- 

 logical Division of the Geological Survey, Canada, died on January 8, 

 1920, aged fifty-seven. Mr. Macoun was best known as a botanist but 

 had a wide acquaintance with ornithology and ornithologists and as joint 

 author with his father, Prof. John Macoun, of the 1909 edition of the 

 Catalogue of Canadian Birds, his death demands notice in the ornitho- 

 logical press. 



Perhaps no one has had as much first hand experience in the less known 

 areas of Canada — Lake Mistassini, James and Hudson Bay, the Churchill 

 and Peace Rivers and Little Slave Lake were all scenes of intensive work 

 by him and he was familiar with the more accessible parts of the Dominion 

 under conditions of the past that will never return again. 



One of the most important pieces of work conducted by him was on 

 the Bering Sea Fur Seal Commission, which he conducted with so much 

 satisfaction to his government as to win his decoration C. M. G. (Com- 

 panion of St. Michael and St. George). 



Of late years he did most of his work in British Columbia, and after 

 completing his father's intensive surveys of two cross sections of that 

 province along the lines of the southern railways he was just beginning 

 another along the Grand Trunk Pacific to the north. 



Death stayed his hand and work just at the height of his powers when 

 years of preparation and ripening judgment made him most valuable to 

 science, to the institution of which he was an honored member and to his 

 country. 



Besides a father and mother, a brother and sister, he is survived by 

 his widow, one daughter, and a host of friends and sorrowing colleagues. — 

 P. A. Taverner. 



The following Fellows have been appointed by the President of the 

 A. O. U. to constitute the Committee on Classification and Nomenclature 

 of North American Birds for the year 1920: Witmer Stone, Chairman, 

 Jonathan Dwight, Harry C. Oberholser, T. S. Palmer, and Charles W. 

 Richmond. 



The committee held a two days' session in Washington, D. C, Febru- 

 ary 11 and 12, 1920, and various general matters were discussed in regard 

 to the method of work of the committee and the preparation of a new 

 edition of the A. O. U. Check-List which should constitute the Nearctic 

 volume of the proposed 'Systema Avium' to be gotten up by the B. O. U. 

 and the A. O. U. jointly. 



Dr. Oberholser was chosen Secretary of the Committee and many 

 nomenclatural cases which had been considered by the sub-committee 



