HOV 3 1902 



BULLETIN 



OF THE 



/IIMcbigan ©mitbological Club. 



Vol. 1. No. 1. 



Grand Rapids, Mich., January, 1897. 



50 cents per year. 



Progress of Ornithology in MiGhigan. 



H 



THOS. L. HANKINSON. 



AVING consulted all available liter- 

 ature on this subject, I will endeavor 

 to give what notes I have found 

 regarding the development of the study 

 of ornithology in our state. Although 

 my source of information has been limited, 

 I hope that I may be able to present a fair 

 outline of the history of the study of our 

 birds, and give an interest for further 

 investigation in this line by others more 

 qualified for this work than myself. 



In looking over the history of this 

 science in the state, there appears to have 

 been three important periods of growth. 

 The first of these includes the time between 

 the printing of Sager 's list in 1839, to the 

 first appearance of Hughes' writings in 

 I860 ; the second takes the interval of 

 time from 1869 to the issue of Cook's 

 Birds of Michigan in 1893 ; and the third 

 or last epoch continues from 1893 to the 

 present time. 



I will, therefore, for the sake of con- 

 venience, divide my material with refer- 

 ence to these three marked periods of 

 advance. 



From Sager to Hughes. 



Prior to this period beginning with 

 1839, we have little knowledge of the 

 work done towards advancing this study 

 in our state. The only mention I can find 

 being made of birds before this, was in 

 1834, when Henry R. Schoolcraft gave a 

 lecture before the Detroit Lyceum on 

 'The birds of the Upper Peninsular." In 

 that same year, he also wrote an article 

 on "A Supposed New Bird" (referring to the 

 Evening Grosbeak). This was printed in 

 Scientific and Historical Sketches of Mich- 

 igan. 



Schoolcraft was among the first to call 

 attention to our Michigan birds, yet his 



work was of such a kind as to count but 

 little towards the growth of our ornitho- 

 logical science. The first real mark of 

 progress was in 1839, when there appeared 

 a list of 164 species known in the state at 

 that time. This list was carefully pre- 

 pared by Dr. A. Sager, and it undoubtedly 

 contained every bird known in Michigan 

 up to 1839. 



Following this, in eleven years, Cabot's 

 list was published, in 1850. This, how- 

 ever, was not a general list for the state, 

 but was confined to a small locality, — the 

 region about Lake Superior. It enumer- 

 ated the species existing there as 69. This 

 list contained the names of some rare north- 

 ern birds, and it was a valuable addition 

 to the knowledge of our birds at that time. 



Rev. Chas. Fox, in 1853, published the 

 second list of birds known to exist in the 

 entire state. He numbered these as 212. 

 Thus we see that in the first fourteen years 

 of the life of ornithology in Michigan, 

 there was an addition of 48 species made 

 to our avi-fauna.* 



The next list of Michigan birds was 

 printed in 1861. It was prepared by Dr. 

 Manly Miles, one of our best workers in 

 the scientific field. It contained 203 

 species. 



Writings of Hughes and the work up 



to 1893. 



We see in the last period that the only 

 work done was in the way of listing the 

 species of the state and localities therein. 

 Little advance towards giving an interest 

 in our birds was made till in the year 

 1869, when there began to appear the 

 writings of D. Darwin Hughes. He first 

 wrote for a local paper. The Marshall 

 Democrat Expounder. In this appeared 

 his "Birds of Calhoun County," in which 



*Dr. S. Kneeland Jr. published in 1857 (Boston Society of 

 Nat. Hist., Vol. VI), a list of the birds of Keweenaw Point, 

 giving 147 species. Coming from so far north it was a very 

 valuable list and one of undoubted accuracy. 



