98 No/es and News. [f^^ 



Rule XI of the Bj-Laws and Rules was amended to read as follows : — 

 " Rule XI. Nominations for membership must contain the full name, 

 residence, official position if an^-, and date of nomination of the candidate, 

 and must be signed by the member or members making the nomination. 

 A suitable form of nomination shall be provided by the Secretary, and 

 also printed lists of the names of candidates for Active Membership, to 

 be voted for by the Australian ballot system." 



From the recently issued 'Report of the Ornithologist and Mamma!- 

 ogist ' of the U. S. Department of Agriculture for 1893, by Dr. C. Hart 

 Merriam, we learn something of the character of the work of this impor 

 tant bureau for that year. Like so many of the Government publications, 

 it is belated news. With this Report Dr. Merriam brings out his 'Third 

 Provisional Bio-geographic Map of North America,' modified in some 

 essential details from the second, published about a year and a half 

 previously. In speaking of the field work of 1893 Dr. Merriam says: 

 " During the present year the biological survey of the Rocky Mountain 

 region has been carried from Utah and Idaho completely across the State 

 of Wyoming, thus connecting the work of the previous years in the Great 

 Basin with the western part of the Great Plains. A large part of 

 Wyoming was found to be from 1,000 to 3,000 feet lower than represented 

 on the latest maps, and consequently to have a warmer summer climate 

 and to belong to a more southern life zone than previously supposed . 

 Thus the Wind River and Bighorn basins and the plains east of the Big- 

 horn Mountains fall within the Upper Sonoran Zone instead of the 

 Transition. ... A special effort was made to determine the position of 

 the boundary between the Upper Sonoran and Transition Zones in the 

 States of Nebraska, North and South Dakota, and Montana. Further 

 south, field work was carried on in Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico; 

 and further west, in California, N'ivada, and western Oregon." Explora- 

 tions were also continued on the tableland of Mexico. 



The collection of data for the mapping of the distribution of species 

 was also continued. While the methods of conducting this work are 

 given in considerable detail, and its great economic importance is duly 

 urged, we are given no definite information as to how far the work has 

 been carried, or when the results aviU be made public. 



In regard to the economic investigations respecting the habits of birds 

 and mammals in their relation to agriculture, it is stated that the bulletin 

 on the Crow, based on the examination of more than 900 stomachs of 

 this bird, is about ready for publication, and that a similar bulletin 

 relating to the Crow Blackbird is well under way. The report concludes 

 with a short paper on the 'Food Habits of the Kingbird or Bee Martin,' 

 by Mr. Walter B. Barrows, in which it is shown that very few Kingbirds 

 catch honey bees, and that 90 per cent, of the bees thus caught are drones. 

 On the other hand the Kingbird destroys large numbers of the so- 

 called robber flies, which are verv destructive enemies of the honev bee. 



