84 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



Aug. 26, 1886. 



and the miiski-at who had been so impolite aa not to re- 

 ceive his charge. Then Sam called one Avithin shoi't range 

 of Pelatiah vrlio, carefully following the instructions given 

 him, blazed avray. Tlie vrater boiled again when the 

 muslcrat had disappeared, and after watching the spot 

 with mmgled hope and disappouitment till the troubled 

 waters became quiet, and the last ripple washed the bank 

 at his feet, the latter expression took full possession of 

 his chop-fallen visage, "I cant hit nothin'!" he said, in 

 a tone so melancholy that it was almost a wail. "I can't 

 hit nothni', an' I won't ti-y agin — be dmnmed if I du!" 

 Just then a dark object popped suddenly to the surface 

 and lay motionless in the center of the circling ripples. 

 The boy conld scarcely believe his eyes when he saw that 

 it was the muskrat, "dead as a hommer," as he presently 

 proclaimed. "When they picked up the rat half an hom- 

 later, they found his jaws full of bottom weeds that he 

 liad grasped in his deatli struggle, and that had held him 

 down till the buoyancy of his dead body loosened them. 



It was now grown so dark, that looking toward the 

 other shore, one could not make out where trees and banks 

 left olf and then- reflections began, save when the ripples 

 of a wake, breaking on the shore, caiight a glint of the dy- 

 ing daylight, and divided the upper gloom and its mir- 

 rowed "^double with a crinkled hue of silver. Then they 

 went to the "pallis," as Sam had named it, and reviving 

 the feeble fii-e with an armful of wood, sat chatting of 

 home, trapping and hunting, till Sam remarked, "Wal, 's 

 Uncle Lisher uster say, it's high time aU honest folks was 

 abed.'' 



Addrm all commimicatifins to the FftresL and Stream Puh. Co. 



THE FUTURE FOR AMERICAN ORNI- 

 THOLOGY. 



BY B. "W. SHUFELDT, M.A.O.U., ETC. 



[Read before the Ridgway Oraitliological Club, of Cadcago, Aug. 

 13, 1886.] 



THERE are a number of quite significant admissions 

 in Professor Elliott Coues's second edition of the 

 '"Key to North American Bu-ds," admissions that are 

 pregnant with truth, and point with incontrovertible 

 accuracy to those fields which lie in the immediate future 

 and beyond, wherein the majority and far the most im- 

 portant of ornithological labors of the comiug generation 

 of workers in this country are to be fotmd. 



The excellent volume to which I refer is the first one 

 of the kind, I beUeve, published in America, that fully 

 api5reciates these f oreshadowings cast on the path of the 

 future of our science, and plainly says to those who have 

 given the subject a moment's thouglit, that the day is 

 close upon ns, the sign of which is that avian taxonomy 

 has well nigh received the finishing touches at the hands 

 of those who rely chiefly upon the characters presented 

 by the exterior of bii'ds, and that now we must resort to 

 their entire structure to settle disputed points. 



As I say, Professor Coues, appreciating this f act,'has set 

 before liis students a series of admirable chapters eluci- 

 dating in a general way the morphology of the class. 



But these are not the admissions to which I have alluded 

 in my first paragraph, though these chapters may be con- 

 sidered as the fingers to so many guide-posts indicating 

 the road, the choice of which leads to the solution of the 

 problems contained in the admissions that are to be found 

 in the body of the work. 



In speaking of the classification of the Icteridce., Profes- 

 sor Coues says: "In fact, I know of no character that 

 will relegate" the bobolink and cowbu-d to the Icteridcs 

 rather than to the FringilUdce. in the cuiTent acceptation 

 of these terms." (Key, 3d ed., p. 399.) And, again, in 

 refen-ing to the order Piearue, ovu- author says: "This is 

 a miscellaneous assortment (in scientific language, 'a 

 polymorphic gTOup') of birds of highly divei'sified forms, 

 grouped together more because they diif er from other 

 birds in one' way or another than on account of their re- 

 semblance to one another. As commonly received, this 

 order includes all the non-passerine land birds down to 

 those with a cered bill (parrots and birds of prey). Ex- 

 cluding the parrots, which constitute a strongly-marked 

 natural group of equal value with those called orders in 

 this work, the Picarice. correspond to the Strisores and 

 Scansores of authors; includiug, however, some that are 

 often referred to Clavuitores. (This 'order' Scansores, 

 or Zygodactyli, containing all the birds that have the toes 

 arranged in pans, two in fi-ont and two belnnd (and some 

 that have not), is one of the most umnitigated inflictions 

 that ornithology has suffered; it is as thorouglily unnatural 

 as the divisions of my artificial Key to one genera.) I 

 have no faith whatever ia the integiity of any such group- 

 ing as Pica-rice implies; but rf I should break up this con- 

 ventional assemblage I should not know what to do with 

 the fraguaents, not being prepared to follow GaiTod to the 

 length of a classification of birds based primarily upon 

 the condition of certain muscles of the leg, and knovdng 

 of no available alternative." (Loc. cit., i^p. 444-45.) 



Of the alternative we will speak later, but the two ex- 

 amples quoted are fair specimens of the dilemma in which 

 Dr. Coues found himself when this "Key" appeared in 

 1884, and he expresses himself in similar language, when 

 he comes to deal with the taxonomy of the sub-family 

 ApJirizinxB, the family Ampelidce, many of the "water 

 birds," and indeed the state of affairs to winch I allude 

 crops out here and there throughout the whole work. 



No doubt the Check List of the American Ornithologists' 

 Union represents in its classification of om- avifauna the 

 acme of refinement to which this subject and the nomen- 

 clature can be brought through the means of long and 

 careful study of the external topography of birds, and the 

 exhaustive sifttug of synonymy. But we are not to rest 

 here, for the researches of anatomists and paleontologists 

 dm-ing the past twenty -five years have abundantly de- 

 monstrated for us the fact that birds have a clear history 

 hi geologic times, and that our American representatives 

 of this now isolated group are linked on every hand with 

 forms tliat are found all over the world. It is rarely the 

 case that an ornithotomist makes an investigation of the 

 entire stiaicture of some bird, holdiug a questionable 

 position in which it has provisionally been placed by 

 systematists, that an nnexpected and helpful ray of light 

 is not let in upon the subject, and our eyes opened to its 

 affinities. The labors of Huxley, Nitzsch, Garrod and 



Forbes, all are telling examples of this. For years past 

 we have almost universally regarded the swifts and hum- 

 ming birds as nearly related groups, but quite recently 

 my anatomical studies have convinced me that this sur- 

 mise has being resting exclusively upon the fact that both 

 of these types liappen to have short humeri, and a sternum 

 which is'unfenestrated and with an entire posterior 

 mai'gin, i. e., not notched, as we find it in the Passeres. 

 But as I say in a paper upon this subject in the Proceed- 

 ings of the Zoological Society of London, such classifica- 

 tion might be applied with equal justice to a mole and 

 the duckbill of the East Indies. Essentially, they are 

 widely different in all other points of structin-e, as are our 

 humming bnds and swifts. I have by me at the present 

 writing a lai-ge number of unpublished drawings and 

 MSS. of om- birds, showing how idcely some of these 

 little differences in structm-e can be brought into play in 

 our classification of the class. 



In other words then, and I offer it as the alternative 

 reqxdred by Dr. Coues in his classification of the Macro- 

 chires and elsewhere, the day is now with us when we 

 must more fully recognize the pregnancy of the remark 

 of a wise British ornithologist, Alfred Newton, who has 

 said there is more to the pursuit of ornithology than the 

 mere "shooting and skinning of birds, and then throwing 

 away then characters." 



It must not be thought from tliis that I in any way 

 undervalue the important labors of the ornithologist, but 

 I do fuUy believe with Professor W. K. Parker, that 

 "modern zoologists, when at fault with their taxonomy, 

 not knowing where to place some perplexing specimen 

 or type, begin to look to the working morphologist for 

 counsel and help in their difficulties. 



"These workers are merely separated for conscience' 

 sake: a thorough zoologist finds no time for embryology; 

 an embryologist is most grateful to the skilled and ac- 

 complished classifier who arranges the various members 

 of each faimal group ready to his hand. 



"Each kind of laborer has the greatest need of the re- 

 sults brought out by the other: the patient dissector waits 

 for the treasures suj)j)lied him by the more mercurial 

 taxonomist; whilst he, in turn, profits by the work of one 

 to whom a single type may serve for the labor of a year 

 or more, yet both are learning to look beneath the surface 

 of things, a growing knowledge of the types showing 

 both that close kinship is often marked by great difference 

 in outward form, and that it is easy to be beguiled by the 

 external likeness of forms — isoviorphic, indeed, but far 

 apart zoologically. Nevertheless, on the whole, the keen 

 eye of the zoological expert seldom errs va. the grouping 

 of forms, even by their outward characters alone; but 

 there are types that will baffle all their skill; and then 

 other counsel has to be called in. 



"Embryology, however, does not exist as a hand maid 

 to zoology; its aims are higher by far than that; and as for 

 the zoologists proper, they exist forthemorphologists and 

 not the morphologists for them. Tlie familiar term 'zy- 

 godactyle' for bnds with a certain form of foot, has been 

 very usefrd, and yet how much ignorance it may be made 

 to hide! It seems to be something when one knows that 

 a certain bird belongs to that group; and yet a cuckoo, a 

 parrot and a woodpecker come none the nearer to each 

 other zoologically by the possession of that kind of foot."* 



Now advocating as I do that the most extensive work 

 ahead of ornithologists in this country at the present time 

 and in the future lies in the dii-ection of exliaustive stud- 

 ies of the sti-uctiu-e of om- birds, how do I expect that such 

 researches can best be furthered, and substantial progress 

 be made? In the first place, even those among us who 

 have the time and are making careful collections of the 

 skins of American birds can accomplish a great deal. Be- 

 fore the bodies of their s]3eciniens are tlirown away it 

 takes but little additional labor to accurately record in 

 the field notebook of the collector certain points noticed 

 about it. such as accurately counting the vertebrse and 

 the ribs.' noting the form of the sterntim or in the last in- 

 stance, ioetter stiU preserving it entire. Then very often 

 we kili a lot of birds which by some unforeseen circum- 

 stance we are prevented from skinning. Now instead of 

 allowing these to become partially spoiled and thenthi-ow- 

 ing them away it is a very easy matter to throw them at 

 once into a jar of strong alcohol, and properly tag them 

 at om- convenience. Such specimens are of the highest 

 value to the morphologist and coidd be sent to people en- 

 gaged continually in that line or to some large museum 

 for distribution. " Most museums would be very glad to 

 exchange them for some of their duplicate skins. It is 

 absolutely astounding sometimes the terrible paucity that 

 exists of such material even in the larger institutions of 

 this country. Not long ago when standing in need of 

 certain alcoholic specimens of birds, I made eft'orts in the 

 most promising direction to secm-e such common forms 

 as om- own whip-poor-wills, a trogan, and indeed many 

 of om most abundant types, but utterly failed in nearly 

 aU cases. They were not in the collections. 



At the founding of the American Ornithologists' Union, 

 I was appointed to write an exhaustive niemoir upon 

 Chamma fasciata, and if possible tlnow some light upon 

 its probable position in the system, and notwithstanding 

 I accepted that task and have ti-ied a mmiber of tunes to 

 secure a full series of specimens for the purpose, up to 

 the present writing I have not a single alcoholic specimen 

 of that form in my possession. So far as I know, orni- 

 thologists are at this moment absolutely ignorant of the 

 ti-ue affinities of this bird, and many others of our 

 avifauna stand in the same case. 



Ornithologists might with very little care add m still 

 other directions to this all important study of morphology 

 —for studies and observations upon the pteryloses of 

 birds, for example, are easily made, and when system- 

 atically done are of the highest value. 



As time rolls by there certainly will ai-ise among us re- 

 cruits to this all-important line of research in the science 

 of ornithology of the future. To these I have but one 

 word to say, and that is, if your studies are undertaken 

 with a view of being of any permanent assistance to cor- 

 rect taxonomy, do not couimit a far too common error of 

 placing too much rehance upon any single set of charac- 

 ters. The skeleton, of course, has always taken a very 

 prominent position as furnishing valuable characters to 

 taxonomists, but in many instances it can be shown that 

 to properly interpret it the aid of the other pai'ts must be 

 invoked. i , , 



Indeed, when the material admits of it, we should rest 

 at nothing short of a complete description of the economy 



*W. K. Parker, Transactions of the Linnean Society. On the 

 Morphology of tbe skull in the woodpeckers. Read April 1874. 



of the form under om- consideration. Then, it almost 

 goes without the saying, to render these oiiservations of 

 the greatest use they should be made, as far as i)ossible, 

 compjarative. By this I mean we should compare, detail 

 by detail, the structure of our subject, with the corre- 

 sponding parts of aU the forms ^vithin om' reach that are 

 known to be more or less nearly related to it. 



Then again there is much to be done in the future ui 

 om- larger universities and scientific institutions hi the 

 way of placing on exhibition full collections of om- bu-ds 

 for the entire extent of om ten-itories. Such exhibitions 

 — and I know of no complete one in this country at the 

 present time— shoidd contain none but the very choicest 

 specimens, and these mounted by the most approved 

 methods and in attitudes most commonly assumed by the 

 bii-ds themselves. 



A collection of this sort should be aiTanged in some 

 appropriate way by means of which the bu-d's structure, 

 its geographical distribution, and its position in the sys- 

 tem, as far as known, could be taken in at a glance by the 

 student. One such complete exhibition, at least, in this 

 coimti-y would be a great boon to omithologists, and 

 surely it presents a field for futm-e work, as the day is not 

 far distant when more than one of our large universities 

 can afford such an addition to then museums. 



TWO BIRD LISTS. 



A Revised List of the Birds of Massachusetts. — In 1864, 

 Mr. J. A. Allen pubHshed in the Proceedings of the Essex 

 Institute a "Catalogue of the Birds found at Springfield, 

 Mass., with Notes on their Migration, Habits, etc., to- 

 gether with a List of those Birds found in the State not 

 yet observed at Springfield." In 1870 he published in the 

 American Naturcdist "Notes on some of the Rarer Birds 

 of Massachusetts," and in 1878, in the Bulletin of the 

 Essex Institute "A List of the Birds of Massachusetts 

 with Annotations." In the Bulletin of the American 

 Museum of Natural History, July, 1886, Mr. Allen brings 

 down to date om- knowledge of this subject in a "Revised 

 List of the Birds of Massachusetts." As we should ex- 

 pect from Jlr. Allen's knowledge on the subject, and the 

 thoroughness with which aU his work is done, the present 

 list is a model of its kind. The notes on the species are 

 in many instances very full, and in all cases of unusual 

 occurrences references are given. 



The number of species fully authenticated as birds of 

 the State is 340. Four species, the gxeat auk, the whooping 

 and sandhiU cranes and wild tia-key are given as extiiimted, 

 and to these may, perhaps, be added the prairie hen and 

 Labrador duck, there are 19 species whicli may be con- 

 sidered as of probable occiuTence. About 143 species are 

 known to breed within the State. The extremely rai-e or 

 accidental visitors number 79, and there are four mtro- 

 duced species, one of which, the Em-opean quail, has 

 probably not survived. 



Birds of Chatauqua County. — This is a reprint of a 

 paper, by Isii'. John M. Edson, read before tlio Chatau- 

 qua Society of Natural History and Natural Science at its 

 semi-annual meeting held in Jamestown, Jan. 29, 1885. 

 It purports to be no more than a hat of the birds which 

 have actually come under the observation of the author 

 in his rambles through the fields and forests of the coimty 

 dm-ing several years past. Onehunch-ed and fifty species 

 are enumerated, including, no doubt, most of the com- 

 moner birds of the region. The annotations of the list 

 are -very meager, and often consist of little more than the 

 words "rare," "common" and "not uncommon." 



The quail is given as now extinct, though formerly 

 found in the county, and the wild turkey is said to have 

 been met with occasionally by the early inhabitants, but 

 was never, in Mr. Edson's opinion, very common. The 

 proofs of this publication do not appeal- to have been read 

 at all, and the whole publication is very slovenly, ama- 

 teurish, and from an ornithological point of view unsat- 

 isfactory. 



To Get Rid of Moles.— All dwellers in the country 

 who have lawns which they try to keep in good order, are 

 familiar with the damage done to such smoothly shaven 

 turf by moles. Their runways and hillocks do perha])s no 

 actual damage, but are very unsightly, and for tliat reason 

 the gardener pm-sues the mole very energetically, if also 

 unsucccssfidly. Traps may catch a few of the moles but 

 will not wholly abate the nuisance. A simple plan, and 

 one winch has recently been tried by a correspondent with 

 entire success, is to drive away the animals by the use of 

 the castor bean. A hole is made in the burrow or runway 

 at either end and in the middle, and half a dozen of the 

 beans dropped into it. The moles disappear. This, at 

 least, has been the case in sevei-al instances which have 

 recentlv come imder our observation. Why they go, or 

 whither, we do not know, but the experiment is so simple 

 and so inexpensive that each person who desnes to try it. 

 can do so for himself. We should be glad to hear with 

 what results. 



A Striking Meteoe.— About 9 o'clock on the evening 

 of last Friday, August 20, a remarkable meteor was seen 

 in the vicinity of tliis city. It is described by one observer 

 as being as large as the full moon, and by another as the 

 size of a bushel basket. When first observed it M'as nearly 

 in the zenith and its comse seemed southeast. Its motion 

 was not so rapid but that tliere was time to remark upon 

 its brilliancy and si/e before it disappeiu-ed. After pass- 

 ing over perhaps 55 degrees of the sky from northwest to 

 southeast, th(! meteor burst, tlno\sdng out fiery particles 

 and then disappetu-ed , Ymt a very ] lerceptiblc train of light 

 marked the course which it liad piursued through the 

 heavens. The fight which the meteor gave was very 

 brilliant, so much so that some of those who saw it re- 

 marked that one could read a newspaper by it. The 

 meteor was seen in the upper part of New York city and 

 also on Long Island near SayviUe. 



Imported Game Birds on the Pacific Coast.— vSmith- 

 sonian Institution, Aug. IS.— Editor Forest and Stream: 

 I am desirous of obtainmg full information respecting the 

 introduction and naliu-alixation of Japanese or Chinese 

 pheasants (or any other foreign game birds) in California, 

 Oregon and Washington Territory. I wish particularly 

 to ascertain the particular species which have become 

 natm-alized and the localities where they are foimd.— 

 Robert Ridgway. 



Forest and Stream Fables. 



