82 NEW YORK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



DEPARTMENT OF BIRDS. 



M'illiam Beebe, Curator; Lee S. Crandall, Assistant Curator; 

 Samuel Staeey, Head Keeper. 



Since the writing of the report of the Department of Birds 

 for 1915, conditions in the bird market have not improved. We 

 feel, therefore, that we are fortunate to be able to state that 

 since that time the collections, either in species or specimens, 

 have not diminished. In former years, we were almost entirely 

 dependent on importations from Europe, for the up-keep of the 

 collections. Asiatic, African and Australasian forms reached 

 us from that source, and far more South American species came 

 by the roundabout way of Hamburg, than by the more direct 

 route. The opening of hostilities in 1914 put a very effectual 

 damper on such shipments, and the meager supply which has 

 continued to dribble thi^ough via Rotterdam and London, has 

 constantly diminished. The recent act prohibiting the impor- 

 tation of live birds into England has proved so stringent that 

 this traffic now is practically ended. 



Fortunately, however, the throttling of the live bird trade 

 has been gradual, so that we have been able to develop new arte- 

 ries of supply, as the old ones grew weaker. South America, 

 principally through the Tropical Research Station, as well as by 

 other means, has been successfully tapped. Australia, whose 

 avifauna ordinarily has been obtainable only on rare occasions, 

 can at present find a foreign market nowhere except in America. 

 It thus happens that, while we still retain a representative col- 

 lection of the birds of the world, including those of our own 

 country, we are particularly rich in the species of South America 

 and Australia. 



From the Tropical Research Station, located in the hinter- 

 land of British Guiana, we have received a steady supply of 

 valuable acquistions. Besides numbers of the more usual spe- 

 cies, the shipments included a fine adult male cock-of-the-rock, 

 (Rirpicola rupicola) in the full m.agnificence of orange plumage; 

 a pompadour cotinga, (XipJwIena pimicea) , probably never be- 

 fore exhibited alive ; three white-necked rails, {Porzana albicol- 

 lis) ; several dusky parrots, (Pionus ficscus) , and a lavendar jay, 

 {Cymiocorax cayanus). 



From a professional collector, we received a pair each of 

 the picine woodhewer, (Dendroplex picinus) , and the white- 



