N "',,,>> x 1 Notes an,! News. 157 



offenders, and freeing the others from the stigma of guilt is a benefil to the 



useful species Moreover it advances I lie cause of bird protection as a 

 whole. If the protection of birds is to rest upon an economic basis the 

 truth must l>e learned and told or the whole movement receive a setback. 

 If bird protection, on the other hand, is to be based upon aesthetic principles, 

 the writer will agree and support the cause, if only the pleading be on that 



basis Bui in the scientific study of economic values, utilitarianism must 



prevail! and the rule of tin- greatest good to the greatest number be uncom- 

 promisingly applied. 



VY. L. McAteb. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



'The Aik' is indebted to Mr. Louis Agassi/, l'uertes for the admirable 

 drawing of the (beat Auk which with the present issue replaces (he cover 

 design that lias done service for the past thirty years. While it may be 

 true that our familiarity with living Great Auks has not increased in this 

 period, it is equally true that in that time an artist has been developed, 

 whose ability in depict Ing bird life, has enabled him to make what is unques- 

 tionably a far closer approximation to the actual appearance of this famous 

 bird, than was possible for any of our bird-artists of a quarter of a century 

 ago. 



Mr Fuertea has moreover had the benefit of suggestions from Mr. 

 1) (I Elliot, Dr. Frederic A. hueas, and Mr. Frank M. Chapman; while 

 the rocky islet upon which his birds are shown, is based upon a phologiaph 

 of Funk Island, where Dr. I.ucas in 1SS7 procured a large collection of 

 Great Auk bones. 



In the first number of 'The Auk' January, 1884, Dr. Elliott Coues in 

 commenting upon criticisms of the name of the journal, hoped that instead 

 of becoming extinct like its namesake, 'The Auk ' might Long flourish, and 

 that in it the bird might live again or as he put it "in pennis Alca 

 ndwiva." In t he 28 years of I )r. Allen's guidance 1 his hope has been amply 

 fulfilled, so far as the text is concerned; and we can now say the same thing 

 of our cover, or following Dr. Coues "in /xnnis Fuertesi Aha redivival 



Bradforo TORREY, a Member of the American Ornithologists' Union 

 and widely known as a writer of outdoor sketches, died at Santa Barbara, 

 Gal., October 7. 1912, after a short illness. He was born at Weymouth, 

 Mass., October 9, L843, a son of Samuel and Sophronia (Dyer) Torrey, 

 and was educated in the public schools of his native town. After com- 

 pleting his school course at the age of eighteen, he worked for a short time 

 in a shoe factory, taught school for a year or two. then, after occupying 

 positions with two business houses in Boston, entered the office of the 



