PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 5 



have also prevented the hunting of caribou with aeroplanes, 

 which was proposed in order to increase the meat supply. 

 The white egret and the roseate spoonbill are both efficiently 

 protected in Louisiana, their chief guardian being an ex-plume- 

 hunter ! The Peruvian birds, penguins, cormorants, gannets, 

 pelicans, &c., which produce immense quantities of the 

 valuable guano, are also protected; and from one island 22, 337 

 tons were collected in three years, which I calculate, from com- 

 parison with domestic fowls, must represent something like 

 4,000,000 birds, or more. In contrast to these useful birds is 

 the little owl, an introduced species, which has greatly 

 increased in some parts of this country, and is said to be very 

 destructive to chickens and game, as well as to small birds. 

 It destroys also, however, mice and beetles, so that it has 

 some good qualities. Investigations of the contents of the 

 stomachs of about 3,000 sea-birds, including 14 species chiefly 

 gulls, have shewn that only in two, the cormorant and shag, do 

 the destructive qualities outweigh the useful. In the rest the 

 advantages to the farmer in the destruction of wireworms and 

 other injurious insects is much greater than the damage 

 caused by the consumption of edible fish, a great part of their 

 diet consisting of small crabs, worms and shore refuse 

 of various sorts. Swallows are rarely seen at Madeira; 

 but the captain of a ship reported that when near the Canary 

 Island off Las Palmas, in October last, thousands of swallows, 

 doubtless migrating, settled on his vessel and remained until 

 early dawn. An interesting event in the Zoological Park at 

 Edinburgh last October was the hatching of the egg of a King 

 Penguin. These Antarctic birds make no nest, but carry the 

 egg and the chick in a fold of skin on the foot. It has been 

 observed in Natal that in the case of African sunbirds the 

 brilliant scarlet in the plumage changes in captivity to a 

 bright orange. This is parallelled by the fact that when 

 crossbills are kept in aviaries, the red changes to green. 

 A new field mouse has been described from the island of 

 Foula, but it seems a little uncertain if it is entitled to specific 

 distinction. A new British whale has also been recorded from 





