Vol i909 :vi ] Notes and News - 335 



are devoted to the birds. The text consists of annotated lists of the Verte- 

 brates of British Columbia, so far as they are represented by specimens 

 in the Victoria Museum. The birds of British Columbia are apparently 

 quite fully shown, and the annotated list of the species gives briefly the 

 manner of their occurrence in the Province, with often a short account of 

 their habits. It is thus not only a Visitors' Guide to the collections but a 

 source of information respecting the vertebrate fauna of the Province. 

 As said by the Curator: "The Provincial Museum (being essentially a 

 British Columbia Museum) necessarily contains only those specimens 

 obtained within its borders, hence none of them were procured by exchange 

 with other parts of the Continent, so that the value of a collection so truly 

 local in its formation is incalculable." 



The June number of the 'Bulletin' of the New York Zoological Society 

 is designated as the ' Wild-Life Preservation Number,' and is devoted to a 

 summary of recent efforts for game protection and an attempt to promote 

 further interest in this too long deferred awakening to the wholesale de- 

 pletion of 'wild life.' This number of the 'Bulletin ' contains a paper by 

 the President of the Society, Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn, on 'The 

 Zoological Society's Work for Wild Life,' and another by Madison Grant, 

 the Secretary of the Society, on 'The Future of Our Fauna,' but most 

 of the twenty pages that make up the number are by the Director, William 

 T. Hornaday. Readers of 'The Auk' who recall Mr. Hornaday's paper on 

 'The Destruction of our Birds and Mammals: a Report on the Results of 

 an Inquiry,' published in 1898 (Second Ann. Rep. New York Zool. Soc, 

 for 1897, pp. 80-126), will not be surprised at meeting with exaggeration in 

 the present connection, but will hardly be prepared for statements to the 

 effect that scientific societies, scientific institutions, and scientific men have, 

 with one or two mentioned exceptions, done little or nothing for the pro- 

 tection of birds and game; or to hear that: "Even down to 1896, the 

 scientific ornithologists of America, as a body, had done absolutely nothing 

 in the cause of bird protection." (Italics as in the original.) 



As is well known, at the second meeting of the American Ornithologists' 

 Union, held in 1884, the protection of birds was considered at length by 

 the leading members, with the result that a ' Committee on Bird Protection' 

 was appointed, and its report at each annual meeting of the Union in sub- 

 sequent years was always a prominent feature of its sessions. Further- 

 more, as early as 1886, this Committee published the first 'broadside' in 

 behalf of bird protection, under the title: 'American Ornithologists Union. 

 Bulletin No. 1 of the Committee on Bird Protection. Destruction of our 

 Native Birds.' It appeared originally as a supplement (16 pages, 4to) in 

 ' Science' (for February 26, 1886), and was reprinted as a separate in large 

 editions and widely distributed gratuitously. A few months later appeared 

 'Bulletin No. 2 of the [A. O. U.] Committee on Bird Protection,' dealing 

 with 'Protection of Birds by Legislation.' This was originally printed in 

 'Forest and Stream' for November 11, 1886, and reissued in a large edition 



