•2'7 6 Meeting of the American Ornithologists' Union. [October 



results of the work of this Committee could not fail to be of 

 high importance. 



By suggestion of the Chairman, the name of the Committee 

 was changed from a 'Committee on Faunal Areas' to a 'Commit- 

 tee on the Geographical Distribution of North American Birds.' 

 Later, in view of the intimate relation of the work of the two 

 Committees, and the fact that the members of the one wei^e also 

 nearly all members of the other, the two Committees were 

 merged in one under the title of a 'Committee on the Migration 

 and Geogi'aphical Distribution of North American Birds,' the 

 original committee on 'Faunal Areas' retaining its organization 

 as a sub-committee of the 'Committee on Migration.' 



Mr. Brewster called attention to the wholesale slaughter of 

 birds, particularly of Terns, along our coast for millinery purposes, 

 giving some startling statistics of this destruction, and moved the 

 appointment of a Committee for the protection of North Amer- 

 ican birds and their eggs against wanton and indiscriminate de- 

 struction^ the committee to consist of six, with power to increase 

 its number, and to cooperate with Other existing protective 

 associations having similar objects in view. After earnest 

 support of the motion by Messrs. Brewster, Chamberlain, 

 Coues, Goss, Merriam, and Sennett, it was unanimously adopt- 

 ed, and the following gentlemen were named as constituting the 

 Committee: William Brewster, H. A. Purdie, George B. Grin- 

 nell, Eugene P. Bicknell, William Dutcher, and Frederic A. 

 Ober. . 



By invitation of the President, Dr. Sclater again addressed the 

 Union, taking for his subject three large and valuable collections 

 of birds, namely that of the Boston Society of Natural History, 

 that of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, 

 and that of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. He 

 had been pained to find that neither of these collections was in 

 charge of a paid and competent ornithological curator. They 

 each contain type specimens having high value. A grave 

 responsibility rests upon the possessors of type specimens, the 

 loss or injury of such specimens being a great and irreparable 

 loss to science. He hoped that the Council of the American 

 Ornithologists' Union would take such action as would bring the 

 matter in its true light to the attention of the proper author- 

 ities. 



