DEPARTMENT OF BIRDS. 89 



ing from April 15 to 23, inclusive, in the office of the Department of 

 Birds of the U. S. National Museum, as being the most appropriate and 

 convenient place, where the books and specimens belonging to the de- 

 partment could be directly appealed to in all cases where there should 

 be difference of opinion among the members of the committee, as must 

 necessarily sometimes be the case. This meeting, together with one 

 held the previous year, also in the curator's office, resulted in the 

 adoption of a very carefully prepared and thoroughly revised code of 

 zoological nomenclature, in which all satisfactory rules of existing 

 codes were incorporated, and many new rules, which were decided in 

 the judgment of tbe committee to be necessary, added. This new code 

 has been the guide of the committee in their preparation of a new list 

 of North American birds, in regard to which a further account may here 

 be not out of place. 



New list of North American birds. — The curator and assistant cura- 

 tor of the Department of Birds having been intrusted by the above- 

 lnentioned committee with the task of determining the correct names 

 of all the known species of North American birds according to the new 

 code of nomenclature, this duty has been very carefully performed, and 

 the copy for the new list delivered to the president of the Union. This 

 new list is passing rapidly through the press, and will be completed by 

 the end of December. 



Collection of birds from Cozumel. — The naturalists of the TJ. S. Fish 

 Commission steamer Albatross having made an extensive collection of 

 birds on the almost unknown island of Cozumel, off the coast of Yuca- 

 tan, it became the duty of the curator of the Department of Birds, as a 

 part of his official work, to determine the species and describe such as 

 proved new to science. The latter, no less than 19 in number, have been 

 described in full in Volume VIII of the ''Proceedings" of the Museum, 

 in which is also given a catalogue of all the species known to inhabit 

 the island. 



Transfer of the collection of birds from the Department of Agriculture.— 

 The offer of the collection of mounted birds, which had for some years 

 been on exhibition in the museum of the Department of Agriculture, 

 having been accepted by the National Museum, the transfer of the col- 

 lection to the Smithsonian building was effected during the month of 

 May. This collection, numbering 712 specimens, consisted largely of 

 common North American birds, the mounting of which is not up to the 

 standard required for exhibition in the national collection. Such speci- 

 mens, being, however, suitable for purely educational purposes, have 

 been made up into sets for distribution to schools or other public in- 

 stitutions which may require the use of such material. The remainder 

 of the collection, consisting of a very fairly mounted and rather exten- 

 sive series of the different varieties of domesticated fowl, and smaller 

 number of specimens of various Phasianidce, has been properly arranged 

 in the exhibition cases. 



