THE AUDUBON NOTE BOOK 



MEMBERSHIP RETURNS. 



The registered membership of tlie Society on 

 Sept. 30 was 39,750, showing an increase of 7^7 

 during the month from the following- sources: 



New York 231 California 17 



Connecticut ig Kansas 26 



Massachusetts 83 Minnesota i 



Pennsylvania 29 Illinois 45 



New Hampshire 3S Alabama 2 



New Jersey 2S Washington Territory 2 



Rhode Island 2 District of Columbia i 



Maine 14 North Carolina i 



Vermont 5 South Carolina 6 



Ohio 72 Maryland 14 



Kentucky 3 Virginia 28 



Wisconsin....'. i Georgia 30 



Colorado 4 Canada 37 



Iowa 15 England S 



Michigan 7 Turkey i 



767 

 C. F. Amery, General Secretary. 



Men and nations, too, have an instinctive craving 

 for light, and have been equally lured to their 

 destruction by the glamor of false lights. 



MIGRATORY NOTES. 



WiTK the season of southward migration the 

 young birds' troubles begin. From far beyond the 

 reach of human vision the migrating birds sight the 

 glimmering lighthouses and bear down upon them in 

 fatal unconsciousness of the danger, only to dash 

 their little lives out on the irons which guard the 

 lenses from injur}-. 



Fifteen hundred small birds were found dead at 

 the foot of the Statue of Liberty one morning, and 

 from further south accounts reach us of unpremedi- 

 tated self-immolations on a similar scale. 



The instinct which prompts migratory birds to 

 fly toward lighthouses has doubtless been given 

 them for a useful purpose. Some have supposed 

 that they are guided on their course by certain stars 

 toward which they are lured by a passionate impulse, 

 until they sink exhausted by the way, to find them- 

 selves in a land of sunshine and plenty. If this is 

 the case; if night after night is spent in the weary, 

 hopeless longing to merge themselves in the bright 

 distant sphere that comes no nearer, one may im- 

 agine the wild delirium of exultant delight with 

 which they approach the lighthouse beacon, every 

 pulse vibrating with desire to merge themselves in 

 its warm, delicious, brilliant glow. Every nerve is 

 strained to the utmost, the glowing light comes 

 nearer — they are there — there is a heavy thud, con- 

 sciousness is suspended, their little lives are battered 

 out upon the impaling iron, and one after another 

 they fall to the ground dead. Happily the speed 

 with which they dash themselves against the pro- 

 tecting irons generally results in instantaneous death. 



CRANKS. 



The genus "crank" is divided into many species 

 and sub-species, but one of the most common and 

 most obno.xious types is that of the poor, deluded 

 wretch who persists in venting his malice for some 

 imagined slight. 



The Audubon Society has for more than eighteen 

 months been pestered by such a crank, who writes 

 paragraphs for country papers warning people not to 

 sign the Society's pledges as the agents or local sec- 

 retaries are swindlers (or conjurers?) who convert 

 the pledges into promissor)? notes. 



Perhaps the writer is a bird skinner, perhaps he 

 has offered his services as a local secretary and been 

 rejected, we know not. All we know is that the 

 paragraphs bear internal evidence of malice. 



The swindle is said to be perpetrated "under the 

 guise of a so-called society for the protection of 

 birds." 



Unfortunately for the writer, if his aims really are 

 malicious, local secretaries are local and well-known 

 residents of the localities in which they act, and 

 rarely solicit the signatures of other than personal 

 acquaintances. The Society has no agents going 

 about the country in quest of members. There is no 

 need. The Society numbered five thousand mem- 

 bers when these paragraphs first appeared; now it 

 numbers forty thousand. Who shall say how much 

 we are indebted to our crank friend for publishing 

 us in out of the way places? 



"MANUAL OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS." 



We have received a copy of the "Manual of North 

 American Birds," by Robert Ridgway. It is a grand 

 work of 600 pages, octavo, supplemented by an in- 

 dex and 123 plates containing nearly 500 outline 

 drawings of generic characters admirably e.xecuted. 



For the naturalist it is sufficient to say that the 

 work is ready; for the sportsman and dilettanti 

 naturalist it m.-iy be added that this work, pro- 

 jected and commenced by Professor Spencer F. 

 Baird, and carried out by Mr. Robert Ridgway, is a 

 standard work of reference representing the highest 

 type of systematic ornithology, a work which in the 

 language of its preface is intended as a "convenient 

 and satisfactory means of identifying any American 

 bird in all its variations of plumage." Professor 

 Baird has left us, but he lived to see the completion 



