292 Notes and News. |_April 



In addition to the general collecting of birds and mammals, he will secure 

 materials for a series of habitat groups of characteristic forms of tropical 

 bird life. He took with him from New York Mr. Louis Agassiz Fuertes, 

 the well-known bird artist, and Mr. Leo E. Miller of Indianapolis, Ind., 

 as assistants, and will be joined in the field by Mr. W. B. Richardson, who 

 in recent years has made large collections of birds and mammals, in Nicara- 

 gua for the American Museum, and who for the last four months has been 

 in the field in western Colombia. The party expected to land at Buena- 

 ventura about March 25, and proceeding inland by way of San Antonio, 

 establishing headquarters later at Cali, in the Cauca Valley, and, if time 

 permits, visiting Quito, and returning by way of Guayaquil. 



Mr. A. C. Bent, of Taunton, Mass., is organizing an expedition to the 

 Aleutian Islands for the purpose of making a thorough biological survey 

 of that interesting region, covering practically the whole of the summer 

 season. Negotiations are now on foot to secure the use of a Revenue 

 cutter to take the party, which will consist of three scientific men in addi- 

 tion to Mr. Bent. Mr. Rollo H. Beck, well known for his work in the 

 Galapagos Islands and along the coast of California, has already been 

 engaged, and it is probable that the United States National Museum and 

 the Biological Survey will each send a representative. 



The expedition will probably start in May, beginning work at Attu 

 Island, the westernmost of the Near Islands, and proceeding slowly east- 

 ward during the summer, will visit and thoroughly explore all of the im- 

 portant islands of the Aleutian chain, and possibly visit some of the islands 

 in Bering Sea. The expedition will be fully equipped to take photographs, 

 and to collect mammals, birds, plants, and other natural history material. 



Through cooperation between the American Museum of Natural His- 

 tory and the United States Bureau of Fisheries the steamer 'Albatross' 

 sailed from San Diego, California, on a two months' collecting trip and 

 survey of the fishery resources of the waters about Lower California. 

 The expedition is under the direction of Dr. Charles H. Townsend, Acting 

 Director of the American Museum, who is supported by able assistants 

 selected expressly for the work to be undertaken. This will consist of 

 deep-sea dredging, a fishery survey of the coasts of the peninsula, and land 

 collecting at frequent points from San Diego southward, particularly for 

 birds and mammals. 



Dr. Townsend has the advantage of previous familiarity with most of 

 the points to be visited, and can thus wisely select the localities for the 

 shore parties, which will be transferred frequently from point to point. A 

 line of deep-sea dredgings was first run to Guadaloupe Island, and the 

 success of the trip to Guadaloupe has been demonstrated by the recent 

 arrival at the Aquarium in New York of six young elephant seals taken 

 there, while skeletons and skins of others, including adults, were secured 

 for the American Museum. 



Doubtless the work of the expedition will add materially to our knowl- 

 edge of the fauna and flora of Lower California. 



