
1890.] Proceedings of Scientific Socteties. 105 
annual meeting ; the most important relates to increasing the active 
membership. The present constitution admits only fifty members to 
this class, but since the formation of the union the study of ornitho- 
logy has received such an impetus, and so many new and worthy candi- 
dates for honors have appeared on the field, that the originally restricted 
number of fifty necessarily excludes many earnest workers who are 
deserving of higher recognition than admission to associate member- 
ship implies. 
The officers of the preceding year were re-elected, but Dr. Merriam, 
much to the regret of the Union, firmly declined his re-election as 
Secretary, a post he has filled since the organization of the Union, 
and Mr. J. H. Sage was unanimously elected to this office. There 
were eight applicants for the single vacancy in the active member list ; 
the fortunate candidate being Dr. Arthur P. Chadbourne, of Cam- 
bridge, Mass. 
Four Corresponding and eighty Associate members were added to 
the roll of the Union, which contains now nearly five hundred names. 
The remaining three days of the session were almost entirely devoted 
to a consideration of the large number of papers presented to the 
Union, the titles of which are appended. Many of these papers will 
appear in the official organ of the Union, The Zink, and it is not 
necessary to further allude to them here. Special attention, however, 
is directed to Dr. Allen’s timely paper on the “‘ Extent to which it is 
Profitable to recognize Geographical Variation among North American 
Bird,” wherein the writer makes some most pregnant remarks on the 
present tendency of ornithologists to describe insufficiently differ- 
entiated forms; and to Dr. Merriam’s remarks on the ‘San Fran- 
cisco Mountain and Vicinity (Arizona) from the Faunal Standpoint.”’ 
This paper, based on Dr. Merriam’s field work during the past season, 
marks an epoch in the study of faunal areas, and the methods of 
observation and tabulation employed present vast opportunities for 
further work by all intelligent field naturalists. 
During the session the visiting members were daily entertained at 
‘lunch by the Linnean Society of New York City, and this pleasant 
social feature was by no means the least enjoyable of what proved to 
be the most successful congress of the Union. 
The following papers were read : 
1. Observations on the Avifauna of 
Winter Distribution of the Bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzworus), with Remarks on its 
Routes of Migration, by Frank N. Chapman. 3. On the Changes of Plumage in the 
ink, by Frank M. Chapman. 4. To what extent is it profitable to recognize Geo- 
graphical Variation among North American Birds? by J. A. Allen. 5. Birds that have 
