ZOOLOGICAL REPORT. 79 



ZOOLOGICAL REPORT. 



BY PKOF. J. W. P. JEJSTKS. 



Mr. President: — 



Though I have nothing specific to offer in connection with the depart- 

 ment confided particularly to my care, yet I am unwilling that it should be 

 entirely ignored in the published " Transactions" of the past year, and there- 

 fore beg leave to submit the following Report. 



It will be remembered that one year ago I suggested the importance to 

 the "tiller of the soil," of determining the alimentary regimen of each spe- 

 cies of birds, and proposed to enter upon the investigation as a life-work, 

 under the auspices of our Society. A committee having been promptly 

 appointed to consider my suggestions in detail, and a favorable report from 

 them adopted by the Society, with a generous appropriation to meet the 

 incidental expenses of the investigation, I employed the year in preliminary 

 work ; such as the printing of Registering Schedules, and the circulation 

 of the same among naturalists in different parts of the country, in order to 

 enlist their cooperation if possible, and the devising of the surest and speed- 

 iest methods for procuring specimens for examination. To head the sched- 

 ules with the Number, Order, Family, Genus, and Species of several hun- 

 dred birds has been no small task, as well as the effort, by correspondence, 

 to explain to others the nature of the work proposed, by whose simultaneous 

 researches I might correct or confirm my own. These preliminaries attend- 

 ed to, I hope to pursue the investigation during the ensuing summer with 

 definite results in reference to, at least, some species. 



And here I may be permitted to correct a very general impression in 

 reference to my Report upon the Food of the Robin. The public press, in 

 various parts of the country, have insisted upon it that I assert positively to 

 the great utility of the robin, with no habits of inutility to either the horti- 

 culturist or agriculturist ; whereas my report, as published in your " Journal" 

 of March, 1859, asserts nothing upon either of those points, but simply pre- 

 sents the/ads of the alimentary regimen of the bird for one year, and leaves 

 every one to draw their own inference. It is somewhat gratifying to know 

 that that inference has been drawn almost universally in favor of the bird, 

 but I am not responsible for it beyond presenting the facts in the case. 



In respect to this entire subject of the alimentary regimen of birds, it is 

 plain that it is commending itself to the attention of naturalists in America 

 as well as in Europe, as evinced by the fact that some of the States have of 

 late enacted more stringent laws for the protection of the nonedible birds. 

 To this result, 1 am authorized to say that the Report upon the Robin has 

 directly contributed, as I infer from the extra copies of the Report demanded 

 of me by the legislators while the matter was under advisement by them. 



I have been repeatedly asked if there is any way to protect strawberry 

 beds, cherry trees, &c., from the depredations of the robin. In answer, I 

 will merely suggest, that a neighbor being much annoyed by them, I gave 



