BIRD NOTES AND NEWS. 



89 



INTERNATIONAL ORNITHOLOGICAL 

 CONGRESS. 



Between three and four hundred representative 

 ornithologists of all nations assembled in London 

 for the meetings of the International Ornithological 

 Congress, held at the Imperial Institute, London, 

 June 12th to June 17th, 1905. The gathering was 

 the fourth of its kind, the previous meetings having 

 been held at Vienna, under the presidency of Prince 

 Rudolf, its main promoter ; at Budapest, under 

 Dr. Fatio, and at Paris, under Professor Oustalet. 

 On this occasion Dr. Bowdler Sharpe was President, 

 and for the next Congress, to be held in Germany 

 in 1910, Dr. Anton Reichenow has been elected. 

 The selection of Germany seemed natural and 

 inevitable, and was indeed recommended at the 

 Paris Congress, but Dr. Reichenow urged that 

 difficulties stood in the way of making Berlin the 

 meeting ground, so that the final choice of the city 

 is left open for the present. German scientists 

 preponderated at this year's Congress, the tongue 

 of the Fatherland being heard on every side. 



France was scarcely less to the fore, sending as 

 Government delegate Monsieur Daubree, Director- 

 General des Eaux et des Forets, and Professor 

 Oustalet. Italy was officially represented by Pro- 

 fessor Giglioli, head of the Florence Museum of 

 Natural History ; Belgium by Dr. Dunois, Ministre 

 de l'Agriculture, and by Dr. Quinet ; Holland by 

 Baron von Schaubert and by Dr. J. Buttikofer ; 

 Hungary by Professor Otto Plerman ; and Sweden 

 by Professor Axel Johan Einar Lonnberg. 



In addition to these official delegates, there 

 were distinguished representatives of many learned 

 bodies in Europe, and in the United States, Canada, 

 Australia, Tasmania, and South America. Among 

 the members were also a number of ladies, including 

 Miss Florence and Miss Maria Audubon, grand- 

 daughters of the great naturalist ; but no lady's 

 name appeared among the contributors of papers. 



The organizing committee consisted of Dr. F. 

 Du Cane Godman, Mr. Meade-Waldo, Mr. Ogilvie- 

 Grant, Dr. Penrose, Hon. Walter Rothschild, M.P., 

 Dr. Sclater, and Mr. H. F. Witherby, with Mr. 

 Fagan as treasurer, and Dr. Hartert and Mr. J. L. 

 Bonhote as secretaries. 



The President's Address. 



Dr. Bowdler Sharpe, in his genial presidential 

 address, avoided controversial subjects, premising 

 that he had not thought it desirable to venture on the 

 stormy waters of nomenclature or classification, and 

 devoted h imself mainly to a very interesting account 



of the great national collection of birds at the 

 British Museum (now at the Natural History 

 Department, Cromwell Road) and its history. The 

 first collection originated in the gift to the nation 

 of Sir Hans Sloane's collec ion in 1753, followed 

 by those obtained in Captain Cook's voyages, and 

 by Sir Joseph Banks's gifts. With the exception of 

 one starling of the Cook collection, all those early 

 treasures have perished, and the real nucleus of the 

 present splendidiaccumulation was Mr. Allan Hume's 

 collection from the Indian Empire, brought over in 

 1885. Mr. F. D. Godman, Mr. Osbert Salvin, the 

 late Marquess of Tweeddale, Colonel Wardlaw 

 Ramsay, and Mr. Seebohm in his valuable bequest, 

 were named as special benefactors. 



The founding of the British Ornithologists' Union 

 in 1859 gave an impetus to bird study ; and every 

 expedition to distant lands and seas adds something 

 to the Museum's stores. There are now some 400,000 

 birds and eggs in the Natural History Museum. 

 One piece of information of great interest, given by 

 Dr. Sharpe, related to the picture of the Dodo in 

 the Museum, long believed, on but slender grounds, 

 to have been the portrait of a living bird. Dr. 

 Sharpe has discovered the following paragraph in 

 an authentic document compiled for the Museum 

 in 1808: "We must not omit a curious picture, 

 executed long ago in Holland, of the extremely 

 rare and curious bird the dodo, belonging to the 

 tribe Gallince, and a native of the island Bourbon. 

 The picture was taken from a living specimen 

 brought into Holland after the discovery of the 

 passage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good 

 Hope. It was once the property of Sir Hans 

 Sloane, and afterwards of the celebrated orni- 

 thologist, George Edwards, who presented it to the 

 British Museum." 



Lost and Vanishing Birds. 

 The case of other birds which are, or like to be, 

 in the same plight as the extinct dodo, was discussed 

 by the Hon. Walter Rothschild, in a lecture given 

 to the members of the Congress at Tring, on the 

 occasion of their visit as Mr. Rothschild's guests, 

 to Tring Park and its wonderful Museum. Round 

 the room were shown numerous specimens, or 

 skeletons, or drawings, of species (1) extinct, (2) on 

 the verge of extermination, and (3) threatened with 

 extermination in the near future ; and in these 

 three divisions the subject was treated by the 

 lecturer. Few perhaps even of the learned mem- 

 bers of the audience had realised the deplorable 

 length of the category of birds exterminated, or 

 doomed to extinction, within the past five hundred 



