32 



THE NIDIOLOGIST 



Ornithology Booming at Ann 

 Arbor. 



Editor Nidiologist. 



Dear Sir : Have just returned from a very 

 pleasant week spent at Ann Arbor, the seat of 

 the great University of Michigan, with its 

 twenty-eight hundred students. Much time 

 was given to a study of the popular trend of 

 Ornithology at the University, as well as among 

 the collectors in and about the energetic city 

 which is its home. 



The University museum has an immense col- 

 lection of mounted birds, many of which, 

 however, are foreign specimens from the Beal 

 and Steere collection, taken in the Philippine 

 Islands. The specimens are being carefully 

 rearranged with a view to making them more 

 valuable and complete as a reference collection 

 of native birds ; and group mounting, amid 

 natural surroundings, is hei;e, as elsewhere, to 

 be the rule. A fine lot of mammals, etc., are 

 also in the museum, but our particular theme is 

 birds. 



It is with pleasure that I am able to state 

 that the study of natural history is becoming 

 more and more popular as the influence of the 

 zoological department, with its enthusiastic 

 workers and attractive display of material, is 

 being felt throughout the State. Amateurs in 

 the work, hunters, in fact, all classes, are learn- 

 ing to use the college museum not only as a 

 place of wonder and amusement, but for refer- 

 ence and study. I might, perhaps, be chal- 

 lenged as not being of an unbiased opinion in 

 the verdict given, but I think Ornithology is 

 coming to the front a little faster than most of 

 the other allied branches of science in Michi- 



The immediate occasion of my visit was the 

 showing of a few hundred bird skins, and a 

 representative collection of insects, from my 

 cabinet, at the fair, which is annually held at 

 Ann Arbor, under the auspices of the Washte- 

 naw County Agricultural Society. I wish to 

 record, in the columns of the Nidiologist, the 

 name of F. E. Mills, the hustling manager and 

 secretary of this fine fair, as a man who has 

 given special recognition to Ornithology as an 

 important feature in economic relation to 

 horticulture and agriculture. Unsolicited he 

 made me a business proposition to show speci- 

 mens of bird skins, in connection with the ex- 

 hibit of county schools at this fair, that the 

 farmers and children might study and ask ques- 

 tions concerning our common birds, and see 

 the method of preparation and manner of 

 studying them pursued by the so-called " bird 

 cranks." 



At the University, Professor D. C. Worcester, 



a man of whom we may expect much, is in 

 charge of our favorite branch of natural his- 

 tory. He is an ardent field naturalist, and has 

 done splendid work in the interest of Ornithol- 

 ogy and mammalogy in the Philippine Islands. 

 AVith his corps of field workers he is now 

 busily engaged in putting up study skins of 

 Michigan birds to be used for reference by 

 students in identification and study. Work will 

 also be done in learning of the geographical 

 races or varieties of birds in Michigan. Pro- 

 fessor Worcester has able helpers in Messrs. 

 Covert, Carpenter, Wood, and Harris. With 

 this force of collectors we may, perhaps, have 

 another recorded specimen of Kirtland's War- 

 bler, or other rarity, before many seasons pass. 

 The fifth, ninth, and eighteenth of the twenty- 

 two specimens yet taken or reported of Kirt- 

 land's Warbler were taken at Ann Arbor, the 

 two first named by Mr. Covert. 



A free course in practical taxidermy is soon 

 to be started under the instruction of Mr. 

 Adolphe B. Covert, and many students, in- 

 cluding some ladies, will take up the work. 

 L. Whitney Watkins. 



September 30, 1895. 



Outing of California Blue Jays. 



ON going into the garden this morning 

 (August 30) I heard a great jabbering 

 and crying going on among a large 

 number of California Blue Jays in the top of 

 the tall Australian blue gum trees. 



I soon understood what was up by the long 

 string of flying Jays leaving the top of the 

 trees, headed for a large almond orchard just 

 below us. They went out by twos, threes, and 

 fours, all a-screeching to one another (no doubt 

 of the good feast ahead among the almonds), 

 till I counted fifty of them. Have noted every 

 fall for many years that they get together in 

 large flocks during August in the canyons and 

 among the live oak covered hills, and when the 

 almond husks begin to crack open by the first 

 of September Mr. Jay and family start out on 

 their fall raiding trips. They scatter all over 

 the orchards till the rains begin, then return to 

 the thick shelter of the live oaks, where they 

 also find food in the acorns, and I have often 

 seen them splitting them open on the limbs of 

 the oaks. They will even make away with cher- 

 ries and plums, being very destructive to fruit 

 wherever small orchards are scattered in the 

 hills or canyons away from the large valley 

 orchards. I found where they had ruined 

 about all the apples, by pecking into them, on 

 a small place some five miles from here back on 

 the hilltops. Otto Emerson. 



Haywards, Cal. 



