1/8 Staten Island Association of Arts and Sciences 



ployed in taking the pictures, as he described them to us so 

 delightfully. 



This article should be an incentive to the Association to pro- 

 vide the means for illustrating our Proceedings in a similar 

 manner when suitable papers are submitted for publication. 



A. H. 

 The Bird of the Silent Wing^° 



Under the above title the author has written one of his inter- 

 esting bird articles, deahng with his observations on the owls of 

 Staten Island. The illustrations, reproduced from photographs 

 taken by the author, may be recalled as having been shown at 

 meetings of the Association. They include young barn owls and 

 old ones in flight, red and gray screech owls in characteristic 

 poses, a saw-whet and a short-eared owl. The facts included in 

 the text are for the most part familiar to us from the papers 

 read at meetings of the Association by Mr. James Chapin (see 

 Proc. Staten I. Assoc. 2: 3. 1908; and 2: 132. 1910), and it 

 is pleasing now to have the observations and the illustrations 

 combined, even though the article is not issued under our own 

 auspices. 



A. H. 



Staten Island Bird Notes and Pictures^^ 



In Bird Lore, under the heading A New Departure for the 

 Redwing, Mrl Howard H. Cleaves describes a change in the nest- 

 ing habits of the redwinged blackbird, Agelaeus phoeniceus (L.), 

 on Staten Island, which he is incHned to ascribe to the ditching 

 and draining of the salt marshes in the crusade against mos- 

 quitoes. The birds have largely abandoned their former nesting 

 places in the marshes and have taken to the adjacent upland 

 meadows. One illustration shows a female redwing hovering. 



^^ Howard H. Cleaves. Country Life in America 18 : 429-432 -|- eight 

 text figures. Au 1910. 



^^ Howard H. Cleaves. Bird Lore 12: 56, 60-62, 107, no. 1910. [See 

 Proc. Staten I. Assoc. 3: 71, 72. 2 My 1911.] 



