1S90.] Notes and News. 4-1^ 



will be grouped separately, as a special part of the exhibition. The results 

 of the combined observations on bird migration made during the spring 

 of 1S90 will be graphically represented, and illustrated with specimens 

 of the birds to which they relate. The observations made fall into two 

 groups : (1) Those made along a diagonal line between the mouth of the 

 River Drau and Lake Ferto, from the middle of February to the middle of 

 May. (2) The combined observations of fifteen ornithologists, made at 

 their respective places of residence during the same period. During the 

 sitting of the Congress several excursions will be made to such parts of 

 the country as present features of special ornithological interest. Count 

 Beta Szechenyi proposes a general fowl and bird shooting excursion on 

 Lake Ferdo, and another for Bustard shooting in the same vicinity. 



The President of the Hungarian Committee is his Excellency the Min- 

 ister of Agriculture, Count Andrew Bethlen. The Vice-Presidents are 

 Mr. Em. Szalav, Counsellor of the Ministry of Public Instruction ; Prof. 

 Geza Entz, of the Polj'technic High School; and Mr. Charles Kammer- 

 meyer, the Mayor of Budapest. The Secretary is Mr. Stephen Chernel. 



A detailed programme of the proceedings at the Congress will soon be 

 arranged, giving further information. 



The real character of the European House Sparrow is at last attract- 

 ing, at least in some quarters, the attention of legislators. While the bird 

 has for some time been made an outlaw by legislative action in several o' 

 the States, and the offering of bounties for their wholesale destruction has 

 been agitated in others, the Massachusetts Legislature, after an extended 

 discussion of the matter, has passed an act entitled 'An act providing for 

 the extermination of the English Sparrow in the Commonwealth.' The 

 act provides as follows : 



"Section 1. In all cities of the Commonwealth the officers having 

 charge of the public buildings, and in all towns thereof such officers as 

 the selectmen shall designate and appoint, shall take and enforce such 

 reasonable means and use such appliances as in their judgement may 

 be effective for the extermination of the English Sparrow therein ; but in 

 so doing poisons shall not be used. 



'■'■Sect. 2. Any person who shall wilfully resist the persons in any city 

 or town charged with the execution of the provisions of this act, while 

 engaged therein, or who shall knowingly interfere with the means used 

 by them for said purpose, to render the same less effective, shall be pun- 

 ished by fine not exceeding twenty-five dollars for each such offense. 



"Sect. 3. Nothingin this act shall be so construed as to allow an offi- 

 cer to enter on private property without consent of the owner or occupant 

 thereof." 



While extermination may not be effected, it seems possible to greatly 

 lessen the numbers of the pest wherever systematic effort is made for] their 

 destruction. Even persistent removal of their nests is found not only to 

 check their increase but to lead them to forsake favorite haunts. 



Among the more important ornithological works in progress or pro- 

 jected may be mentioned the following as of special interest. As noticed 

 in the present number of 'The Auk' (p. 379), the fifteenth volume of the 

 British Museum Catalogue of Birds, by Dr. Sclater, devoted to the Tra- 



