V i8^ 3 X Dutcher, Rare Long Island Birds. 267 



NOTES ON SOME RARE BIRDS IN THE COLLEC- 

 TION OF THE LONG ISLAND HISTORICAL 

 SOCIETY. 



BY WILLIAM DUTCHER. 



The Long Island Historical Society was organized at a meet- 

 ing held March 3, 1S63, in the rooms of the Hamilton Literary 

 Association, by a few persons interested in local history and 

 kindred subjects, and in the following month it was formally 

 incorporated under its present name. Rooms were then obtained 

 in" a building located at the corner of Court and Joralomen 

 Streets, Brooklyn, owned by the late Mr. A. A. Low. Such 

 material as^ was added to the collection from time to time was 

 exhibited there until the summer of 1SS0, when, the Society 

 moved to its present commodious and fire-proof building at the 

 corner of Pierrepont and Clinton Streets. Shortly after the 

 organization of the Society a department of natural history was 

 instituted, and has been a valuable adjunct to the more general 

 purposes of the institution. A small and unostentatious begin- 

 ning has become the nucleus of an excellent and instructive 

 collection of the zoology of Long Island, and has grown to 

 embrace much of value of its ethnology, local antiquities, and 

 historical relics. The work of the Society is defined in Article 

 II of its by-laws as follows: "The object of the Society is to 

 discover, procure, and preserve whatever may relate to general 

 history, especially the natural, civil, literary, and ecclesiastical 

 history of the United States, the State of New York, and more 

 particularly of the counties, towns, and villages of Long 

 Island." Later a committee consisting of Mr. Elias Lewis, Jr., 

 Mr. J. Carson Brevoort, Mr. Henry E. Pierrepont, Prof. Chas. 

 E. West, and Mr. Charles Congdon, was formed, whose special 

 duties were defined as follows: "To collect, procure, and 

 preserve whatever might illustrate the natural history of Long 

 Island." This latter department now contains three hundred 

 and twenty-nine well-mounted specimens and three hundred and 

 eleven unmounted skins of Long Island birds, representing some 

 two hundred and ninety-six species. Its collection of eggs 



