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ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



Brpttrtmrnta : 



Mammals 



W. T. HORNADAY. 



Birds Aquarium 



C. William Beebe. C. H. Townsend. 



Reptiles 

 Raymond L. Ditmars 



Lee S. Crandai.l. 



Raymond C. Osbcbn 



Published bi-monthly at the Office of the Society, 

 11 Wall Street, New York City. 



Yearly by Mail, $1.00. 



MAILED FREE TO MEMBERS. 



Copyright, 1913, by the Netv York Zoological Society. 



Each author is responsible for the scientific accuracy 



and the proof reading; of his contribution. 



Elwin R. Sanborn. Editor. 



Vol. XVI. 



No. 58. 



JULY, 1913 





J. 



PIERPONT 



MORGAN 



HUGH 



DUDLEY 



AUCHINCLOSS 



As the years pass, the inflexible processes 

 of time record upon the pages of our publica- 

 tions their toll of friends who have yielded 

 to the inevitable order of human life, growth 

 and decay. 



The men who have helped to make the 

 Society a power in the world are dropping 

 by the wayside, and their places are being filled 

 with the men who will carry the work to future 

 generations. 



To those of us who have helped in the 

 planting of the seed and watched it expand 

 into the healthy bloom of success, there is a 

 measure of sadness in the fact that all who 

 have labored so unselfishly may not live 

 on and forever enjoy the fruits that ripen 

 after the first years of trial and tribulation. 

 One moment they spread their hands and un- 

 der the magnetic touch the wilderness blooms, 

 buildings arise, and then in the kaleidoscopic 

 change of life their forms fade from sight, 

 other hands take up the task and the march 

 goes on apace. 



It falls to our lot to record in these pages the 

 passing of two of our staunehest members, 

 J. Pierpont Morgan and Hugh Dudley 

 Auchincloss. 



Mr. Auchincloss' devotion to the work of 

 the Society is best understood and appre- 



ciated by the men who worked with him. Mr. 

 Morgan let his light so shine before men that 

 the whole world now knows of his many gentle 

 charities that were unheralded and unsung. 

 In honor of the memory of these men, the 

 Executive Committee of the New York 

 Zoological Society, in session April 3, 1913 

 and May 7, 1913, passed the following reso- 

 lutions : 



Resolved, That the Executive Committee of the Board of 

 Managers of the New York Zoological Society learn with 

 great regret of the decease in Rome, on March 31, 1913, of 

 Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, a Benefactor of the Society. Mr. 

 Morgan was one of the earliest Founders, and became a 

 Benefactor in December, 1910, and the Society always 

 found in him a discriminating and powerful friend. 



Resolved, That the Executive Committee of the Board of 

 Managers of the New York Zoological Society learn with 

 great regret of the death, on the 21st day of April, 1913, 

 of Mr. Hugh Dudley Auchincloss, a Life Member of the 

 Society, and a member of the Board of Managers since 1900. 

 His interest in the welfare of the Society was unremitting, 

 and it is with a deep sense of loss that this record of his death 

 is made upon the minutes. E. R. S. 



THE LONDON FEATHER TRADE. 



a scathing letter from slr harry johnston, the 

 great African Explorer to the Manchester (Eng- 

 land) Guardian. Zoological organizations severely 

 and justly arraigned. 



To the Editor of the Manchester Guardian: 



Sir — I have read the letter from the plumage section 

 of the London Chamber of Commerce which appeared on 

 May 17th in your columns. The arguments employed by 

 all such apologists for this branch of the feather trade 

 (who deprecate interference to stop the destruction of 

 wild birds) are singularly reminiscent of similar pleas a 

 hundred years ago put forward for the retention of the 

 slave trade and the status of slavery. But, like such 

 arguments, they are equally devoid of foundation in 

 economics as well as in moral justification. I have suffi- 

 ciently answered in the "Times" the objections raised by 

 the chairman of the plumage section of the London 

 Chamber of Commerce to my contention that the de- 

 struction of bird life in West and West Central Africa (for 

 the sake of the plumage trade, as well as for other reasons) 

 was acting prejudicially against attempts to control and 

 exterminate the tsetse flies, as well as gadflies, mosquitoes, 

 other harmful insects, and ticks. I will now deal with the 

 other points in Mr. Howell's letter. 



I am not aware that "the trade" — by this he means, 

 I suppose, the fourteen firms of feather and bird-skin 

 dealers in the City and East London, the head and fore- 

 front of our offending — has ever done anything to promote 

 the domestication of the ostrich, or the rhea. As to the 

 rhea, they and their foreign colleagues and correspondents 

 are striving hard for its extermination in South-east South 

 America and Brazil. They sell the plumes as those of 

 "vultures." (Full particulars of the trade in rhea feathers 

 can be obtained from the secretary of the Royal Society 

 for the Protection of Birds.) And as to "organising pro- 

 tection for egret and paradise birds," this claim is too 

 nauseous. What has been done by the feather trade to 

 "organise protection" for these wonderful types of bird 



