Notes from Field and Study 



307 



heard several harsh, rasping cries, and 

 immediately a Little Blue Heron streaked 

 it past us at a rate of speed far different 

 from that of his usual lumbering flight. 

 He was closely pressed by a Cooper's 

 Hawk, which wheeled abruptly at the sight 

 of us and disappeared behind a nearby 

 clump of poplars. These two encounters 

 were interesting to me as showing several 

 things: (a) the ferocity of these Hawks 

 in attacking birds as large, or larger than 

 themselves; (b) the fact that both pur- 

 sued birds gave full utterance to their 

 terror in flight; (c) the fact that it was, 

 in each case, one of our only two com- 

 monly destructive species of Hawks that 

 was caught in the act of attacking, first, 

 a bird of positive value, and second, one 

 whose economic position is at least 

 neutral. — Julius C. Peter, Seymour 

 Ind. 



Notes from Connecticut 



The severe storm of the last of August 

 brought many bird visitors to the Con- 

 necticut shore. At the height of the storm, 

 I saw a Laughing Gull, together with sev- 

 eral Common Terns, flying about the har- 

 bor, and an old seaman reported seeing a 

 Petrel in the harbor. 



Yellow-leg Snipe and the smaller Sand- 

 pipers and Plover were more plentiful 

 than in years, and there was an occasional 

 Curlew in the flocks. 



On the Fairfield beach, I saw a Sander- 

 ling which was unable to close its bill, 

 the ends of the bill being at least half an 

 inch apart; and the bird was searching 

 for food and seemed unusually tame, allow- 

 ing us to approach to within a few feet. 



Immense flocks of Starlings are per- 

 forming wonderful evolutions over the 

 salt marshes, some of the flocks surely 

 containing more than a thousand birds. — 

 Wilbur F. Smith, So. Norwalk, Conn. 



Twenty-ninth Annual Congress of the 

 American Ornithologists' Union 



The Twenty-ninth Annual Congress of 

 the American Ornithologists' Union was 



held at the Academy of Natural Sciences, 

 in Philadelphia, November 13-16, 191 1. 

 The first day, as usual, was devoted to a 

 meeting of the Council of the Union, 

 followed, in the evening, by a business 

 meeting of its Fellows, when the following 

 ofiicers were elected for the ensuing year. 



President, Frank M. Chapman; Vice- 

 presidents, A. K. Fisher, H. W. Henshaw; 

 Secretary, J. H. Sage; Treasurer, J. 

 Dwight, Jr.; Members of the Council, 

 Ruthven Deane, William Dutcher, F. A. 

 Lucas, W. H. Osgood, Charles W. Rich- 

 mond, Thomas S. Roberts, Witmer Stone. 



Owing to poor health and the increasing 

 demands made on his time and strength 

 by his official duties in the American 

 Museum of Natural History, Dr. J. A. 

 Allen tendered his resignation as Editor 

 of 'The Auk,' after a term of service of 

 twenty-eight years as editor of this jour- 

 nal, and of eight years as editor of its 

 predecessor, The Bulletin of the Nuttall 

 Ornithological Club. Dr. Allen's resignation 

 was accepted with reluctance, and Mr. 

 Witmer Stone was appointed in his stead. 



Five Honorary Fellows, four Corres- 

 ponding Fellows, and eighty-one Associa- 

 ate Members were elected. 



In addition to the no members regis- 

 tered as present, the open sessions of the 

 Union were well attended by the public, 

 and, as the program shows, the papers 

 presented were of exceptional interest. 



On the evening of the 14th, the members 

 of the Union were entertained by Mr. and 

 Mrs. W. L. Baily at their home at Ard- 

 more, and on the following night they 

 were given a 'Smoker' at the Academy^of 

 Natural Sciences. Thus abundant oppor- 

 tunity was afforded for the social inter- 

 course which forms so delightful and so 

 important a part of meetings of this kind. 



PROGRAM. 



I. In Memoriam, Henry A. Purdie, 

 William Brewster, Cambridge, Mass. 

 2. The Validity of the Red-legged Sub- 

 species of Black Duck, by Dr. Charles 

 W. Townsend, Boston, Mass. 3. Descrip- 

 tion of a New Ptarmigan from the Aleu- 



