22 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



REPORT ON THE BIRDS. 



By William Brewster. 



The Museum has acquired during the year about 5,500 birds, 

 representing upwards of 200 species or subspecies new to its collec- 

 tion, besides many others of exceptional rarity or interest. Mr. 

 Bangs has attended to the identification, labeling, etc. of this 

 fresh material with his accustomed promptness and efficiency. 

 Much of it comes from far distant lands, not as yet thoroughly 

 exploited by ornithologists. Mr. F. R. Wulsin, collecting in 

 Madagascar, in the summer of 1915, sent from there 1,065 skins, 

 besides an almost equal number obtained by him in British East 

 Africa, together with a few from Uganda; to Hon. W. Cameron 

 Forbes we are indebted for 245 specimens (representing 30 species 

 not before possessed by the Museum) collected by him personally, 

 with the help of two assistants, in Uruguay and Brazil, during 

 January and February, 1915; to Mr. H. R. Amory for 176 skins 

 obtained by him in the Azores and Canary Islands and at Mogador, 

 Morocco; to Prof. H. W. Smith for 307 birds from Sarawak, 

 Borneo; to Dr. J. C. Phillips for 337 birds of exceptional interest 

 collected at the Falkland Islands, by Mr. W. S. Brooks, between 

 October, 1915 and February, 1916; to Mrs. Ezra R. Thayer, 

 Mrs. C. G. Weld and Dr. Thomas Barbour, for 409 specimens 

 secured in Santo Domingo during the spring of 1916, by Mr. J, L. 

 Peters. That Col. John E. Thayer's devotion to the interests 

 of the Museum has in no wise abated is abundantly shown by the 

 continued munificence of his gifts. Those of recent date and 

 previously unacknowledged include 221 birds taken in the Bahamas 

 by Mr. C. J. Maynard in the spring of 1915, 46 obtained there by 

 the same collector in 1884, and six rare Petrels from South Georgia 

 Island. To Col. J. E. Thayer and Dr. Theodore Lyman jointly 

 we are under obligation for the final instalment numbering 365 

 skins of Alaskan birds collected by Messrs. W. S. Brooks and 

 Joseph Dixon, in 1913-1914. 



More than 1,000 skins of Neotropical birds have been pur- 

 chased. 



