Mat 21, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



835 



view of the quality of the papers read and the 

 number and broadly representative character of 

 the members who took part in it. 



The sessions closed with a dinner at the Bellevue- 

 Stratford, on Saturday evening, April 24, at which 

 about one hundred members were present and at 

 which the speakers were: President Patton, of 

 Princeton; the British Ambassador, Mr. Bryce; 

 President Pritchett, of the Carnegie Foundation; 

 President-elect Lowell, of Harvard, and President 

 Keen, of the American Philosophical Society. 



The annual election of members held at the 

 executive session on Saturday, April 24, resulted 

 in the election of the following candidates: 



Residents of the United States. — Louis A. 

 Bauer, Ph.D. (Berlin), Washington, D. C; Mars- 

 ton Taylor Bogert, New York;- Hermon Carey 

 Bumpus, Ph.D., New York City; Alexis Carrel, 

 M.D., New York City; Edwin Brant Frost, Will- 

 iams Bay, Wis.; Robert Aimer Harper, Ph.D., 

 Madison, Wis.; William Herbert Hobbs, Ph.D., 

 Ann Arbor, Mich. ; A. V. Williams Jackson, Ph.D., 

 LL.D., Yonkers, N. Y. ; John Frederick Lewis, 

 Philadelphia; Abbott Lawrence Lowell, Boston, 

 Mass.; William Romaine Newbold, Ph.D., Phila- 

 delphia; Charles Bingham Penrose, M.D., Ph.D., 

 Philadelphia; William Howard Taft, Washington; 

 Charles Richard Van Hise, M.S., LL.D., Madison, 

 Wis.; Victor Clarence Vaughan, M.D., Sc.D., 

 LL.D., Ann Arbor, Mich. 



Foreign Residents. — Francis Darwin, M.A., 

 F.R.S., Cambridge, Eng.; Hermann Diels, Ph.D., 

 Berlin; Emil Fischer, Ph.D., M.D., Berlin; Fried- 

 rich Kohlrausch, Ph.D., Marburg; Wilhelm F. Ph. 

 Pfeffer, Ph.D., Leipzig. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES 



THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE OF ST. LOUIS 



On the evening of Monday, March 1, the regular 

 meeting of the Academy of Science of St. Louis 

 was held at the Academy Building, the feature of 

 the program being a paper, read by Mr. Julius 

 Hurter. The subject of the discourse, which had 

 been compiled by Mr. Hurter and Mr. John K. 

 Streeker, Jr., was " The Amphibians and Reptiles 

 of Arkansas." 



After stating that up to the present time defi- 

 nite records are obtainable from only 15 of the 

 75 counties of Arkansas, Mr. Hurter recorded the 

 facts that 100 species of reptiles and amphibians 

 have been reported from Arkansas, and 90 from 

 Missouri. Thirteen of the Arkansas species are 

 not known to occur in Missouri, and nineteen are 

 not found in eastern Texas. Most of the species 



are eastern and southeastern forms which find 

 their western limit in Arkansas and the eastern 

 half of Louisiana. Another interesting fact 

 brought out was this — that of the 71 species oc- 

 curring in both Arkansas and the eastern half of 

 Texas, 63 are also found in the state of Missouri. 

 Mr. Hurter showed numerous specimens in illus- 

 tration of his paper, and also the blind salaman- 

 ders of the world: Pj-oteus anguinus (European 

 blind salamander), Typhlotriton spelmus (Mis- 

 souri) a,nd Typ7ilomolge rathiuni (Texas). 



At this meeting, on proper motion, duly sec- 

 onded and unanimously carried, the following 

 memorial was adopted as expressing the views 

 of the academy; and copies were ordered sent to 

 the speaker of the house of representatives, the 

 president of the senate, and the gentlemen who 

 represent Missouri in both branches of the present 

 Congress : 



" The Academy of Science of Saint Louis, an 

 organization equally interested in the preserva- 

 tion and the proper and consistent utilization of 

 the gifts of nature, respectfully urges oU'the Con- 

 gress of the United States the desirability of 

 promptly passing the House Joint Resolution now 

 under consideration as a means of continuing the 

 provisions of the Burton Bill, limiting the diver- 

 sion of water from Niagara Falls, until equally 

 effective but more permanent protection of the 

 Falls shall be secured by adequate legislative or 

 executive action." 



The program of the meeting of the Academy of 

 Science of St. Louis which occurred on March 

 15 was a paper by Mr. Otto Widmann on 

 "' The Birds of the Missouri Botanical Garden." 

 In twenty visits to the garden during the summer 

 of 1908, Mr. Widmann noted forty species of birds 

 breeding there, and six species which were more 

 or less regular visitors from near-by breeding 

 grounds. And, besides these, there were scores 

 of transient visitants during the migratory sea- 

 sons. The breeders are the bob-white, mourning- 

 dove, screech owl, yellow-billed cuckoo, black-billed 

 cuckoo, red-headed woodpecker, northern flicker, 

 chimney swift, kingbird, great crested flycatcher, 

 wood pewee, Traill's flycatcher, blue jay, crow, 

 eowbird, red-winged blackbird, meadow lark, 

 orchard oriole, Baltimore oriole, bronzed grackle, 

 goldfinch, English sparrow, English tree sparrow, 

 chipping sparrow, song sparrow, towhee, cardinal, 

 rose-breasted grosbeak, indigo bunting, warbling 

 vireo. Bell's vireo, yellow warbler, yellow-throat, 

 yellow-breasted chat, mockingbird, catbird, brown 

 thrasher, house wren, wood thrush and robin. 



