5 [Vol. xxiii. 



as in Africa. Mr. E. C. Stuart Baker has written some 

 good papers in the 'Journal of the Bombay Natural History 

 Society/ and has just issued an excellent volume on the 

 Indian Ducks and their allies, beautifully illustrated by 

 coloured plates. From the mountains of the far-distant 

 Island of Formosa some remarkable novelties have also 

 lately arrived, and Mr. Ogilvie-Grant, assisted by Mr. J. D. 

 La Touche, has taken the opportunity of summarising all we 

 know of the birds of this Island*. Formosa contains a 

 singular mixture of Palrearctic forms (Gurridus, Emberiza, 

 Regulus, Sitta, &c,) with those of the Oriental Region. But 

 the finest bird that has yet turned up there is the splendid 

 new Pheasant, Calojihasis mikado, originally based by Mr. 

 Ogilvie-Graut on two tail-feathers, but now well known to us 

 from the specimens in the British and Tring Museums, some 

 of which have been exhibited to us by Mr. Rothschild f. 



I will not trouble you loug on this occasion with what is 

 going on ornithologically in the Australian and Neogean 

 Resrions. Our Australian friends have their * Emu' and our 

 American fellow-workers their ' Auk ' on one side of the 

 Continent and the ' Condor ' on the other. But we may 

 express our sincere hopes that Mr. Ridgway may be able to 

 bring bis heavy task on the Birds of North and Middle 

 America to an early conclusion, and that our frieud 

 Mr. Mathews may succeed in his somewhat ambitious plan 

 of prepai'ing a new illustrated work on the Ornithology of 

 Australia. 



One more word, however, I must say, before closing this 

 address. Most of you, probably, have heard of Lord 

 Avebury's Bill now before Parliament to prohibit the im- 

 portation of the skins and plumage of wild birds. It was 

 fully explained and commented on in the July ' Ibis' (1908, 

 p. 515), and has, I am informed, been generally well received. 

 I have myself no doubt that it well merits the support of 

 every lover of Birds, such as we all claim to be here. But 



* See ' Ibis,' 1907, pp. lol, 2o4, & 1908, p. 600. 



t See Bull. B. O. C. xxi. p. 22, and ' ibis,' 1908, p. 000, pi. xiii. 



