MUSEUM BULLETIN 



OF THE 



^tatnt Jalanb Aasoriattntt of Arts anb ^rtrnrra 



EDITED FOR THE PUBLICATION COMMITTEE 



BY CHARLES LOUIS POLLARD, CURATOR-IN-CHIEF 

 No. 45. Published Monthly at New Brighton, N.Y. APRIL, 1912. 



THE NEXT MEETING OF THE ASSOCIATION 



Will be held in the assembly hall of the museum, 154 Stuyvesant Place 

 St. George, on Saturday evening, April 20, 1912, at 8:15 o'clock. Dr. Arthur 

 Hollick. secretary of the Association, will deliver an illustrated lecture on 

 the topic "Eleven hundred miles by canoe down the Yukon." 



J. Q. ADAMS, Acting Secretary. 



The trustees have elected the following persons to active membership 

 in the Association : Mr. Charles J. McCormack, Mr. F. Winthrop White, 

 Mr. Ralph Woodend, New Brighton ; Judge J. Harry Tiernan and Mr. John 

 B. Golden, Stapleton. 



For accessions during March the museum is indebted to Messrs. J. W. 

 Angell, Lawrence S. Barroll, John Callahan, George E. Engelhardt, Robert 

 W. Gardner, C. VV. Leng, Ernest Schroeder, R. J. Smith, Henry Wort and 

 Miss Mary Beyer. 



OUR VANISHING WATER-FOWL. 



Time was when Staten Islanders might go forth on March mornings 

 and mark the well-nigh endless procession of Canada geese flying high and 

 honking their way into the north in well formed V-shaped detachments. 

 Well within the memories of the older residents of the Island was the time 

 when it was possible to go to the shores at New Dorp, Great Kills and 

 Princes Bay and gaze upon the ducks -bluebills, shelldrakes, whistlers, old- 

 squaws, butter-balls, dusky ducks, white-winged and sea coots (to adopt 

 the names adopted bv the fishermen and baymen) flying hither and thither, 

 changing from one feeding ground to another, diving, resting on the sur- 

 face, preening themselves and traveling by on short journeys at rates of 

 speed varing from twenty to eighty miles an hour. There were also numbers 

 of brants, loons and g"ebes, not to mention numerous shore birds and others 

 that frequent bays and creeks. 



But conditions have changed and are still changing. The feeding 

 grounds have been disturbed and destroyed; civilization has crowded in ; 

 and, worst of all, pot hunters and ne'er-do-wells with guns have pursued and 

 persecuted the birds until the flocks of to day are but sad suggestions of 

 those that are gone. It is onlv rarely that we now see a flock of wild ducks 

 in the harbor, although a few weeks ago the writer noted a flock of twelve 

 "whistlers" while crossing to Manhattan on the ferry. However, in severe 

 winters the ducks appear in goodly numbers in the Lower and Raritan bays, 

 and during the unusual rigors of the season 1911-1912, just past, it was 

 gratifying to note large flocks of several kinds and to record more different 

 species than have come under our notice in a single winter for many years. 

 During this visitation some collecting was done, the result being that the 

 museum is now in possession of specimens of the beautiful little buffle-head 

 or spirit duck, red-breasted merganser or shelldrake, goldeneye or whistler, old- 

 squaw or old-wife and American merganser or sawbill. It may be that some 

 of these ducks a few years hence will have disappeared from Staten Island 

 waters, and the preservation of locally captured specimens for our col- 

 lection is therefore especially desirable. 



H. H. c. 



Entered as second-class matter in the Postorfice at New Brighton. N. Y., under Act of Congress of July 16. 1S94 



