12 



THE OOLOGIST. 



what he said, still one could see the 

 broad smile which lit up the Doctors 

 face, as he gave the young painter an 

 encouraging pat. 



"Is Uniformity in Local Lists 

 Possible?" by Mr. J. D wight, 

 Jr., received a great deal of 

 opposition. His plan was to 

 give technical words in th'i first declen- 

 sion for the names we now use to de- 

 scribe birds on our local lists. The 

 technical word is to be placed after the 

 name of the species thus, he would 

 have Downy Woodpecker (habitants) 

 instead of, The Downy Woodpecker is 

 a resident through the year, and breeds. 

 His plan had its merits, it saved time 

 in making lists, and would save a great 

 amount of circumlocution, but the 

 principal objection was the bringing so 

 many more confusing foreign words 

 into the study of ornithology would not 

 be desirable, as already we have too 

 many. 



Mr. Harry Oberholser- then gave a 

 brief address on Liberian Birds. He 

 began by giving a description of the 

 physicial conditions of the country and 

 gradually led up to the subject of its 

 feathered inhabitants. His descriptions 

 were exceptionally good. 



Dr. Coues informed us that some- 

 thing interesting was going to take 

 place outside the Museum. This was 

 rather vague but all followed Dr. Allen 

 out side, where we saw two stuffed 

 partridges, one in its natural feathers 

 and the other with the back feathers of 

 another bird fastened upon its breast, 

 making it the exact color of the ground. 

 Mr. Abbott H. Thayer explained that if 

 we would stand back twenty-five feet 

 or so, we would easily see that the 

 ground colored bird was plainly visible, 

 appearing black, while the other was 

 much less conspicious. He had colored 

 two sweet potatoes one dirt-brown and 

 the other brown on top gradually shad- 

 ing down to ashy underneath. They 

 were strung on a wire so as to raise 



them from the ground. From a dis- 

 tance of twenty-five feet the brown 

 sweet potato was very plainly seen, but 

 the other was scarcely visible. These 

 experiments were to show that animals 

 having lighter under parts were much 

 less comspicious than if they were a 

 solid color, because, light coming from 

 above cast a shadow below, thereby 

 making the lower colors look darker. 

 This experiment was entitled on the 

 program, "Further Demonstrations on 

 Protective Coloration." 



On Thursday the Committee on Bird 

 Protection made its report, which was 

 read by the chairman, William Dutcher. 

 He said that thousands of pamphlets 

 had been distributed, and many news 

 paper articles have been printed rela- 

 tive to the cruelty by which feathers 

 were obtained for millinery purposes, 

 yet women pleaded ignorance and con- 

 tinued to wear feathers. "The Terns 

 of Penikese Islands, Mass" by Mr. G.H. 

 Dutcher was an interesting paper 

 which occupied a great deal of atten- 

 tion. 



On Thursday afternoon at a few min- 

 utes past four the convention adjourned. 

 This years Congress was probably one 

 of the most interesting held during the 

 fifteen years of its exhistance. 



Early Nesting- of Sturnella Magna 

 Neg-lecta. 



While hunting in the Spring of 1893 I 

 found a nest of the Western Meadow 

 Lark in a field near home. The nest 

 was made of wire grass and was placed 

 in a clump of grass. It contained two 

 whole eggs and three broken eggs, so 

 that the nest must have been finished 

 March 10th. 



I am certain that it was a new nest 

 for the birds were around. The eggs 

 were-normal in all respects. 



H. D. Watts, 

 Compton, Cal. 



