224 
The chairman called attention to the action of the Inter- 
national Ornithologists’ Congress held in Vienna last April, 
stating that be had been instructed (in common with dele- 
gates from other countries) to represent the cause of the com- 
mittee in the National Government, begging it ‘to further 
to the utmost the organizing of migration stations,” and ‘‘to 
appropriate a sufficient sum for the support of these stations, 
ae the publication of annual reports of the observations 
made.” 
The Council was instructed to memorialize the Congress 
of the United States and the Parliament of Canada in behalf 
of the work of the Committee on Bird Migration. 
On motion by Mr. Brewster, the Committee on Geographi- 
cal Distribution was merged into the Committee on Migra- 
tion as a sub-committee, the whole committee to be entitled 
a “Committee on the Migration and Geographical Distribu- 
tion of North American Birds,” 
In response to a call from the president, Dr. P. L. Sclater 
said: ‘‘l hope the members of the American Ornithologists’ 
Union will excuse me if I offend the feelings of any one by 
the remarks Iam about to make. It has agerieved me much 
to find in this country three large and valuable collections of 
birds which are not under the care of paid working ornithol- 
ogists. One of these isin Boston, one in New York, and 
the other in Philadelphia, Each contains what all ornithol- 
ogists admit to be most valuable typical specimens. A grave 
responsibility rests upon the possessors of types of species, 
and the loss or injury of such specimens is a great and irre- 
parable loss to science. The collection of the Boston Society 
of Natural History (known as the LaFrenayé Collection) has 
been much damaged by neglect, and the entire collection 
ought now to be catalogued and so artanged as to render any 
particular specimen readily accessible. In this building (the 
American Museum of Natural History in New York) are the 
types of the celebrated Maximillion Collection, and many 
other specimens of exceeding great value. A large number 
of these have never been properly identified, and some of 
them are missing, and haye doubtless been destroyed by in- 
sect pests. ‘I'be value of others has been lost through neg- 
lect, by the displacement of labels, and by the omission of 
proper measures for their preservation, The same remarks 
would, in a general way, apply to the collections of the Phil- 
adelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. It is sad to find no 
paid ornithologists in charge of these exceedingly valuable 
collections, and I beg to suggest that the American Ornithol- 
ogists’ Union can undertake no worthier task than to impress 
upon the proper authorities the urgent necessily of immediate 
action in this matter.” (Applause). 
The officers of the Union were reélected as follows: Presi- 
dent, J. A. Allen, Cambridge; Vice-Presidents, Dr. Elliott 
Coues and Robert Ridgway, Washington; Secretary and 
Treasurer, Dr. C. Hart Merriam, Locust Grove, New York, 
The place of meeting for next year was referred to the 
Council for decision. 
NOTE ON THE GUILLEMOTS. 
‘HE following notes are extracted from a paper on ‘‘Sea- 
birds as Bait for Catching Codfish,” by Capt. J. W. 
Collins, in the Report of the U. 5. Fish Commission: 
The Foolish Guillemot or Murre (Uria Jrotle) Linn. Tu 
apring large flocks of murres are seen on the fishing banks, 
migrating: northwardly. I have noticed them in greatest 
abundance on Banquereau, east of Sable Island. The flocks 
reach this locality in April, and from the 20th of that month 
to the middle of May are more numerous, as a rule, than at 
any other time. April 26, 1879, latitude 44’ 32' N,, 
longitude 57° 12' W,, I ‘‘saw several flocks of murres,” and 
three days later there were ‘‘large numbers of murres,” 
A single individual is sometimes seen in summer on the 
banks, but this is by means a common occurrence, In the 
fall, however, they are more numerous, as at this season 
they are performing their autumnal migration southwardly, 
but, whatever the reason may be, they do not, I believe, ap- 
pear on the banks in such abundance at this season as during 
the spring months. They are sometimes killed and eaten 
by the fishermen, but are never obtained in any considerable 
numbers. On afew occasions I have shot one or two indi- 
viduals, and they are sometimes knocked over with an oar 
by the men engaged in hauling a traw!], when the murres 
have approached closely enough to the boat to make such a 
feat possible. I have noted in my journal under date of 
Oct. 1, 1878, latitude 43° 54’ N., longitude 58° 32’ W., that 
“one of the crew killed a murre while hauling his trawl, 
and I skinned it.” Ly 
Little Guillemot or Sea Dove (Mergulus alle) Linn.—The 
little guillemot, commonly called ‘ice bird” by the fisher- 
men, is frequently seen onthe bauks in the winter, more 
particularly in the yicinily of field ice, but I have never ob- 
served it in any considerable numbers. It is fond of staying 
close to a fishins"Véssel at anchor, it being attracted by the 
offal that is thrown over, and which, when sinking, is se- 
eured and eaten by the little guillemot, which is an expert 
diver. 
A FISH-EATING BUG. 
OT SULPHUR SPRINGS, Col., Oct. 5, 1884.—The 
Formst AND STREe4M has told us a good deal recently 
about the voracious bladderwort and how it consumes little 
fishes, all of which is very interesting if not quite so pleas- 
ing. A couple of days since my attention was called to 
another agency that is doubtless largely destructive to the 
same helpless innocents, 
Half a mile from here is a,log pond, in which large num- 
bers of saw logs are collected in summerand autumn, It 
becomes a great resort for trout late in the season and is then 
a favorite angling place. The water is perfeetly clear and 
not yery deep, and the fish can be seen by hundreds. They 
are very notional about their food and hard to catch. Some 
days only a young and tender grasshopper will entice them; 
other days a small, neutral-colored, artificial fly, and on most 
days they cannot be taken at all. At best, not more than 
one in ten will deign to look at the lure at all. 
Ttold my neighbor, the Doctor, about these fish, and he 
came up prepared for them, In order to offer them a vari- 
ety of temptations he brought along his fly-book, a box of 
grasshoppers and a bucket of minnows, helgramites, and 
black water bugs. ‘These three last he had caught in the 
same water hole that had been left by the receding river. 
Among the bugs was one yery large one, tortoise-shaped, and 
over an inch in Jength by half an inch or five-eighths in 
breadth, with proportionate depth, and witha] avery power- 
ful and formidable insect. There were several smaller ones, 
of similar appearance and proportions, but not much over 
half aniuch in length. ‘When the Doctor reached the pond 
he brought the minnow bucket to me and called my atten- 
tion to the fact that the bugs were eating up the fish, The 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
o + 
large bug was just fivishing up one minnow, while four of 
the smaller bugs were stripping the skeleton of another, The 
Doctor said he had 1aken the minnows not half an hour be- 
fore from s water hole, as before stated, in which great num- 
bers of minnows are left every season as the river goes down, 
and from which they gradually disappear. The ‘hole never 
dries up, and the fish should live there all the year or until 
the next year’s flood. When he placed them in the pail they 
were all alive and active. A few minutes later he noticed 
that the big bug had seized one of the fish by the head and 
was killing it. Half an hour later he had stripped the skele- 
ton of all its flesh, and the four little bugs had killed a sec- 
ond fish and devoured it. The minnows were over an inch 
in length. 
This predatory action of the bugs was a revelation to me, 
as if was also io the Doetor. He remarked that it explained 
the disappearance of the minnows from the water holes, and 
I suppose it also accounts for the destruction of myriads of 
them in other waters. The same day Il watched these water 
bugs feeding in running water along the edge of the river. 
They appeared to be catching insects, invisible to my eyes, 
and would dart to the surface with almost the quickness and 
certainty of aim of a trout itself. Having caught its prey 
the bug would return as quickly to its hiding place at the 
bottom of the water aud await the approach of its next vic- 
tim. There were no minnGws in the vicinity. In my 
opinion these carnivorous water bugs are almost universal m 
fish-producing waters, but 1 do not believe that very many 
people know that they destroy small fish. The minnows in 
this case were about an inch and a quarter long. 
I took eleven trout yesterday in twenty minutes with a 
very small mouse-colored fly, W.N. B, 
[The bug referred to by our correspondent was probably 
one of the Nepide, a family of the order Hemiptera, These 
bugs inhabit the water and feed on smali fish, the lary of 
insects, etc. Belosioma is one of the commonest genera and 
contains some of the largest species of the family. ] 
ANTIDOTH FOR SNAKE BitE.—New York, Oct. 7,—Hdttor 
Forest and Stream; Under the heading ‘Snake Biles,” in 
your number of 2d inst., ““Nessmuk”’ says he has no faith in 
whisky for snake bites, Although it is not my intention to 
try and convince him to the contrary, still 1 would like to 
eall his attention to the following facts, which came under 
my personal notice. A negro, the other day, while stooping 
down to pick up a stick, while walking along a road late at 
night, i Campbell county, Va., was bitten in the thumb by 
& moccasin, and had to run one and a half miles to a house 
to get any assistance, and then could only procure whisky. 
His arm and right side had swelled meanwhile to an enorm- 
ous size, but after partaking liberally of whisky the swell- 
fing began to abate, and three days afterward he was all 
right, Again, three weeks ago, atthe same place, my brother 
was bitten at night, about 10:30, by a copperhead, the fangs 
entering the hand between the joints of the second and third 
fingers. He took three pints of whisky before total intoxi- 
cation was obtained, and nothing else was done, yet by next 
morning all the pain had gone, and within four days the 
swelling had nearly all gone, leaying the arm discolored, 
which, however, disappeared within four or five days. In 
neither case was anything else but whisky resorted to.— 
RuLe BRrITaNNrA, 
— Game Bag and Gun, 
SOME EXPERIENCE WITH TURKEYS. 
WN editorial friend, while visiting the other day at my 
house, laid down a copy of Forms? AND STREAM with 
the remark, ‘“‘TV’ve just read one of those articles on ‘Bullet 
ys. Buckshot,’ I thought you had written if until J saw that 
it came from some man out West.” ‘“‘No,” said I, ‘I’ve had 
no leisure of late for newspaper correspondence.” I sit in 
the chair of wisdom, planted upon the hill of experience, 
and, with my feet resting upon the recollections of the many 
hunting weapons I have owned, calmly smoke the pipe of 
complacency, and let the bullets and buckshot whistle 
around the hase of the lofty eminence on which I proudly 
sit enthroned. 1 
Goethe says that in order to become tolerant, it is only 
necessary to grow old—he saw no sin in others which he had 
not himself committed, 
One of your correspondents frankly acknowledges the 
commission of many unsportsmanlike acts, That is, of 
course, if he has hunted much. Itis the gentleman within 
him that does this, and regrets these acts, a lower nature 
would have wished to do the same again. 
Some think it wrong—unworthy a sportsman—to shoot a 
grouse while sitting, Frank Forester, who claimed to bethe 
great exemplar of all that was chivalry in field sports, says, 
in ‘‘Warwick Woodlaads”’ (I quote from memory): ‘Now, 
mark me—no chivalry—a ruffed grouse, darting downward 
from the top of a tall pine tree is a shot to balk the devil, 
give him no second chance.” Evidently he would shoot a 
grouse while sitting—so would I. : ; 
In the past discussions anent the “‘Choice of Hunting 
Rifles” and ‘“‘The Performance of Shotguns,” the paper 
which has interested me the most was one by Mr. J. B. 
Brousseau, published, I think, in one of the May numbers 
of this year, and dated somewhere in the British Provinces. 
Tt contained suggestions for an all-around gun, and I would 
like to see them carried out, as that is what I have been 
looking for for thirty or more years. He proposes a smooth 
barrel, however, and I should prefer one rifled if, as I have 
been led to believe, there are specially-made shot cartridges 
for use in grooved barrels. 
In 1857, I spent some weeks in the forests of Somerset and 
Piscataquis counties, in Maine. J had two guns: one double 
i4-cauge shotgun and the old “‘punkinslinger,” which was 
about 80-inch barrel, 8 pounds weight and carried 32 round 
balls to the pound. It had, for that day, an unusually sharp 
twist, the grooves being cut on a ‘‘12-foot circle,” a new 
plan at that time, whatever it may be now. Of all the guns 
that I have owned there is none which | remember with 
more pleasure than this, I have always been sorry that I 
parted with it, which I did at the outset of a journey during 
which it would have been an incumbrance, 
The next season that I spent in the Maine and New Hamp- 
shire forests I was better armed, I carried a combination— 
rifle and shotgun, barrels placed vertically, locks side by 
side, Inever found the long nipple an objection, In dif- 
ferent years 1 used two of these guns, of nearly the same 
pattern—14-2auge shot, 65 round balls to the pound for the 
rifle, barrels 32 inches. Many years after I carried a double 
(Ocr. 16, 1884, 
rifle, by Henry T, Cooper, of New York, and two sets of 
barrels, side by side, the rifle barrels carrying 16 to the 
pound and the other set a combination. I used it on the 
prairies and in the northern Wisconsin woods, and found 
that my old style rifles were preferable; and I can think of 
nothing better at this day, except that I should prefer breech- 
loaders. In hunting in the regions west of Missouri I haye 
used a Spencer repeater, IT remember one day jumping a 
flock of turkeys, close by, but the Spencer was no use. We 
were short of meat, of course, as also one day when J sat on 
the bank of the Grand River writing up my journal, and the 
shadow of a swinging limb danced across the page. A large 
gobbler had alighted within twenty feet of me. I seized my 
rifle, but the turkey left. O, for a combination gun, Tur- 
keys? Ishould think so. “Hyver kill many?” No, sir; I 
have yet to kill my first, I haye seen them by hundreds, 
howeyer. I remember that I counted 110 in one day, They 
were running along the bank of the Arkansas, in different 
places. We did not need the meat, and shot none. One 
Sunday at our noon halt a friend took my gun and killed 
two near camp, Hesaid I could get some if I chose, hut 
the weather was hot, and it would have been a waste of life, 
For game I have always preferred round, heavy balls. 
When IJ say ‘‘same’ I don’t mean chipmunks, 1] am noe 
nail-driver with the rifle, never was. 1 can buy a prefty 
good hammer for a dollar, and for building purposes should 
prefer it toarifle. J have hunted with men who could drive 
the nail, however, and have beaten them with their own 
suns. 
As to long-range shooting, say 800 yards and up, I know 
Jittle about it. I have always preferred shorter ranges, The 
longest shot at game I have ever made was with a shotgun, 
and I believe that the distance approached 300 yards. Of 
course the case was exceptional, and I am not likely to re- 
peat it. It was the last chance of the season, the geese 
started just where 1 wasn’t looking for them, the gun was 
loaded with small bullets—a dozen or so—and I gave it a 
good three-feet elevation and ‘‘onhitched.” It was raining 
and the smoke hung before the gun so that I was uncertain, 
if the shot had told, but there was a lean possibility in my 
favor, and taking the line of discharge,I walked. It was on 
the prairie, and before I found my goose, I had nearly for- 
gotten the shot and was looking for other game. A single 
shot had siruck it inthe neck, 1 doubt if there was another 
portion of that charge within twenty feet, I am a believer 
in possibilities, and therefore read with patience the stories 
men tell about the buckshot patterns their guns will make at 
from sixty yards to—lI forget—thirty or forty rods I believe. I 
never saw a gun which, so far as I know, could be depended 
on with loose buckshot much beyond forty yards. 
I remember that in Southwest Missouri, some cighteen 
years ago, I had left a camp which we had just established 
and walked up a ravine to look for a better supply of water. 
My own gun being yet to arrive, I had picked up one from 
among a stack in the corner of the camp, quite as a matter 
of course, and as I walked on through the high grass and 
low saplings I took a look at the piece. It had been got up 
without much regard to expense. There was a quantity of 
silver antlers, patchboxes, escutcheons and the like spattered 
over the stock, and the ramrod was striped, like a stick of 
eandy, The gun was very heavy, and carried about ninety 
to the pound, While I was thinking that it would not 
answer me as a permanent investment, a large turkey rose 
from the grass three or four yards before me, turned upon 
me the gleam of his dark, bright eye, and glided silently 
southward. Not being accustomed at the time to these 
birds, my first thought was of a tame turkey; but instantly 
remembering that there were no neighbors thereabout, I 
cocked my rifle. I could, | thought, have shot the turkey 
with a pistol, and just as I was releasing the hammer to 
bring the gun to my shoulder I called to mind the fact that 
I had heard it stated that the rifle I carried wouldn’t stand 
cocked unless the trigger was set. Confounded old abortion. 
O for a forty-cent Belgian fowling piece, or a Continental 
musket; but I lowered the thing, set the trigger, and—by 
that time the unreasonable bird was some sixty yards off and 
going like a quartér-horse up an oak-studded fhillside—l 
drew a bead, pulled trigger and the old battery hung fire. 
lt went off, however, as I was lowering the butt and cut 
from the top of one of the oaks a good-sized limb, which 
came down but didn’t kill the turkey. We were short of 
meat in camp—nothing, but ‘‘Uncle Ned” (bacon)—and I 
strode homeward with the firm conviction, which all the in- 
tervening years have not sufliced to change, that the avoir 
dupois of that turkey was, as was said of Daddy Biggs’s 
catfish, ‘‘the rise of sixty pounds.” 
As 1 was saying, I have killed no turkey even unto this 
day, and if there is one gun more than another which I can 
confidently recommend for ~-around work, it is a shot-and- 
rifle combination. : KELPIR. 
CENTRAL LAkE, Mich. 
CALIFORNIA DUCK SHOOTING. 
66447 HAT are black brant?” is the inquiry of our Hastern 
vistors here during the winter, as they encounter 
the name on the bills of fare at our leading hotels; and for 
the benefit of those who are interested in game birds and 
their habits I propose to give a short description of one of 
the gamest birds on the continent, and one whose flesh is 
prized here above that of the canvas-back or mallard duck. 
The anterior part of the black brant (Bernicla nigricans, 
Lawr.) is black, the rest dark plumbeus, with a white collar 
round the neck, each side of the rump and tail white, bill 
and feet black, the former wider than that of the common 
brant; the bird weighs about 4 pounds, length about 30 
inches, spread of wing nearly 45 inches. He is found from 
about October to May solely in Sun Diego Bay, on the coast 
of California, and the following, written tor the ‘‘Bulletin of 
the Nuttall Ornithological Club,” by BH. W- Nelson, of St. 
Michael, Alaska, shows that the flight of the birds south 
commences about Oct. 1, and after wintering here returns 
north about the middle of May,- The clipping is the first 
news we haye had about where the black brant summers, 
and was gladly welcomed by our local sportsmen, and will, 
no doubt, be interesting to many an Eastern ornithologist: - 
“About the 20th of May we begin to look for the black 
brant, the ‘Nimkee,’ as it is called by the Russians, the ‘Luk- 
lug-u-nuk of the Norton Sound Hskimo.’ Ere long, the 
avant-courier is seen, in the form of a small flock of ten or 
fifteen individuals, which skim along, close to the ice, head- 
ing directly across Norton Sound, to the vicinity of Cape 
Norne, whence their route leads along the low coast, to Port 
Clarence, where I am told by the natives, some stop to breed; 
but the majority press on and seek the ice-bordered northern 
shore of Alaska, and even beyond, to unknown regions far 
to the north. Of this] am assured by Capt, E, EH, Smith, 
