IOWA ORNITHOLOGIST. 



23 



Hearing Loomis' excellent 

 paper on "The Protection of Our 

 Birds." 



Seeing the painting of the Ruff- 

 ed Grouse which Savage had to 

 illustrate his paper. 



We have taken the family Vire- 

 onidee for special study this quar- 

 ter. The notes on the species of 

 this family should be sent to Jno. 

 V. Crone, Ames, Iowa, by Dec- 

 ember 1st. Let every one of the 

 forty-three active members send 

 in their notes. 



The Downy Woodpecker. 



ED. S. CUKRIER. 



I HAVE been surprised, that in 

 none of the publications de- 

 voted to our interests, has any 

 writer remarked upon the almost 

 total disappearance of the Downy 

 Woodpecker, (dryolates pubes- 

 cous) from his usual haunts. 

 Every paper has contained matter 

 about the Blue Bird and how 

 scarce they are all over the 

 country, but in my territory I 

 have seen more Blue Birds since 

 the 1st of March than I have 

 Downys, and it mast be the 

 same throughout the wooded 

 country. 



Up to this year the Downy has 

 been our most abundant wood- 



pecker the year around but this 

 spring I did not find a single 

 nest, and have noL heard or seen 

 more than ten or twelve of the 

 birds during the spring, sum- 

 mer and so far this fall. 



I think that the same cause 

 that is responsible for the loss 

 of the Blue Bird: viz., the steady 

 and long continued cold and deep 

 snow that we had during the last 

 two weeks of January and first 

 two of February — played havoc 

 with the Downys. 



The Hairy Woodpecker has 

 not been so numerous as usual, 

 either, but their absence is not so 

 noticeable and I do not believe 

 so many perished. 



During April and May while 

 tearing out holes in search for 

 nests of chickadee, nuthatch and 

 titmice, I found the dead bodies 

 of six Downy .and one Hairy 

 Woodpecker, showiaj no evi- 

 dence that they had died from 

 any other cause than cold or 

 starvation. 



The First Annual Congress of the 



Iowa Ornithological As= 



sociation. 



T^HE First Congress of the Iowa 



Ornithological Association 



was held at Iowa City, Aug. 22- 



23, 1895, in the Zoological Lee- 



