276 THE NA TURE-STUD V RE VIE W [3 : 9-DHc., 1907 



producers was at an end and their value for lumber was seriously lessened. 



Now twenty million turpentine cups are used in the pine forests of the 

 South to catch the flow of resin from the trees, and seven or eight million 

 are added each year. These simple-looking cups, which are not unlike 

 flower pots in size and shape, indicate a rapid and highly important change 

 in the American method of gathering turpentine, due to the need of 

 economy in using all forest products and to the application of science in 

 an old-fashioned industry. \Press Bulletin of Forest Service.] 



Bird Groups at the American Museum. Bird Lore for July — August 

 describes the new bird groups at the American Museum of Natural History, 

 New York. Each group is designed to embody a definite idea. The 

 more novel feature of this idea is to be found in the painted backgrounds 

 which form a part of each group. Painted back-grounds for small groups 

 or panels of mounted birds have long been employed by the taxidermist, 

 but this, it is believed, is the first attempt to introduce backgrounds 

 painted from nature and intended to reproduce a given scene as accurately 

 as the groups they supplement do a limited portion of it. Such back- 

 grounds have, therefore, not only a biologic or ecologic value, as they 

 portray the nesting habit of a species or illustrate colonial nesting habits 

 on a scale which mere taxidermy alone would prohibit, but they have 

 also a botanic, geographic and physiographic value. It is believed, there- 

 fore, that when the thirty-odd groups which have been planned for this 

 series are completed, the Museum will have not alone adequate reproduc- 

 tions of the nesting habits and haunts of many American birds, but will 

 have also a series of paintings representing in a novel and attractive manner 

 characteristic American scenery. This series might indeed be called 

 America and its Bird Life. 



The Disappearance of the Passenger Pigeon in Ontario dates back at 

 least forty years, though as late as 1870 some of the old roosts were still 

 frequented, but the incredible flocks, of which so much has been said, had 

 gone long before that date, and by 1880 the pigeon was practically exter- 

 minated, not only in Ontario, but over the greater part of its old range. 

 There are, however, occasional records of birds taken for some years 

 later. I was in New York in the latter part of November 1892 and was then 

 assured by Mr. Rowland, a well known taxidermist, that he had recently 

 seen several barrels of pigeons that had been condemned as unfit for food. 

 They had come to New York from the Indian Territory. Mr, Wm. 

 Brewster has recorded the sending of several hundred dozens of pigeons 

 to the Boston market in December of the same year, and in January, 1893 ; 

 these were also from Indian Territory. These are the last records we 

 liave of the passenger pigeon as any thing more than a casual migrant. 

 The records ceased after this till 1898 when three birds were taken at 

 points widely apart, an adult male at Lake Winnipegosis, Man., an im- 

 mature male at Owensboro, Kentucky, now in the Smithsonian Institution 

 and another immature bird taken at Detroit, Michigan, is in my collection. 

 "These are the last records that can be based on specimens. 



The birds were seen wild as late as 1900; but for all practical purposes 



