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60 THE NIDOLOGIST 
THE COOPER CLUB 
Annual Assembly, January, 1897 
HE Annual Assembly of the Cooper 
Ornithological Club of California con- 
vened at the residence of C. Barlow at 
San Jose Saturday evening, January 9, with 
a large attendance. Several visitors were 
present. R.B. Moran of Berkeley and R. 
B. McLain of Stanford were elected to mem- 
bership. A committee of four, consisting 
of Messrs. H. B. Kaeding, Jno. W. Mail- 
liard, D. A Cohen and H. R. Taylor was 
appointed to co-operate with a committee 
from the California Academy of Sciences 
with reference to the framing and passage 
of a bill favoring the protection of Califor- 
nian birds. 
The annual election of the officers of the 
Club-at-Large and Northern Division for 
1897 took place, resulting as follows: Pres- 
ident, Walter E. Bryant of Santa Rosa; 
Vice President, Henry B. Kaeding of San 
Francisco; Secretary, C. Barlow of Santa 
Clara; Treasurer, D. A. Cohen of Alameda. 
The program of the evening was proceeded 
to. A paper was read by the Secretary, 
Mr. Barlow, entitled, 
A Club Retrospect. 
“A review of the work of the Cooper 
Ornithological Club during its existence is 
like all retrospective matters,—not without 
its regrets. The Club is now in the fourth 
year of its lifeand though it may have been 
possible for us as a body of members, to 
have accomplished a greater amount of 
scientific work than is now to our credit, 
it is beyond dispute that the Club in carry- 
ing out its general aims has been an unqual- 
ified success. At the time of our organi- 
zation in June, 1893, there was no Orni- 
thological association in California which 
embraced our proposed scope of work. 
Popular interest in the study of our birds 
among active field workers was practically 
at a standstili, and there were many difficul- 
ties to surmount in establishing a success- 
ful club. Weare all more or less familiar 
with the ups and downs of the Club during 
its first year. Happily our co-worker, Mr. 
Taylor, established his excellent magazine, 
THE NIDOLOGIST, a few months after we 
were organized and we were thus able to 
secure recognition among the workers to 
whom the magazine went. I feel that I 
voice the appreciation of the members at 
large in saying that the Club has been sub- 
stantially aided by means of the liberal 
space granted its reports in our official organ 
and the consequent wide distribution they 
have received. 
‘“The work of the Club has perhaps been 
as successful as we could hope to have it, 
considering the wide distribution of our 
members and the differing nature of the | 
territory covered. We have inclined toward 
general observations rather than the pros- 
ecution of a given line of work. Soon after 
the organization of the Club we took up the 
study of the life histories and nidification 
of the Wrens and Vireos native to Califor- 
nia, which resulted in many good papers 
being sent in, but lack of organization pre- 
vented the work being a success. The 
success of our meetings been largely de- 
pendent upon the program committee, whose 
duty it is to solicit papers and contributions 
for the monthly meetings, and we have had 
presented papers ona wide range of sub- 
jects, which have made the meetings more 
interesting, perhaps, to members at large 
than would a sub ject of organized research 
or the study of a designated family. Among 
th. papers presented within the last two 
years have been many containing observa- 
tions of special interest and value upon the 
nidification and habits of many of our rare 
birds. These have included notes upon the 
rarer forms of birds of the Colorado Desert 
and Guadalupe Island, California Pigmy 
Owl, Poor-will, Calaveras Warbler, Hermit 
Warbler, and numerous others- Papers 
have been presented describing authentically 
for the first time the nesting of the Western 
Evening Grosbeak, (picturlug its nest and 
eggs), and the taking of two sets of eggs 
of the White-throated Swift, which are 
probably the first perfect sets on record. 
“Through the medium of our club pro- 
ceedings these papers have been placed 
within reach of all working Ornithologists 
of America. Copies of important papers 
are forwarded to the Smithsonian Institu- 
tion and by these two methods our pro- 
ceedings are given a wide circulation. 
There are but few lines of organized work 
along which a clubwith a comparatively 
scattered membership can hope to work 
successfully. The undertaking we have 
recently engaged in (that of compiling a 
complete annotated list of the Land and 
Water Birds of California) offers a field of 
work in which each member can engage 
