SECOND REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR 1905 



49 



cleaning. At the request of the Forest, Fish and Game Commission 

 the Zoologist has made a special study of the squirrels and other 

 rodents of the Adirondacks and submitted a report on this subject. 



Birds of New York. A special treatise in monographic form on 

 the birds of the State has been inaugurated and Mr E. Howard 

 Eaton charged with its preparation. It is planned that this work 

 shall be in effect a revision and completion of the Ornithology of 

 the original Natural History Survey of 1843, since which date no 

 effort has been made to present the subject in its entirety. The 

 amazing growth of public interest in our native birds and an 

 unslakable thirst for information concerning them fully justifies 

 the undertaking. Mr Eaton has visited and studied all the prin- 

 cipal bird collections in the State, public and private, and has 

 received enthusiastic cooperation from many quarters; he has 

 spent time in field observations in the Adirondacks, supplementing 

 thereby his extensive information in regard to the characters and 

 habits of the birds. The work contemplates not alone a description 

 of the bird species but discussions of their distribution, migration, 

 causes of increase and decrease and measures for bird protection. 

 Mr L. A. Fuertes is preparing the color drawings for this book. 

 It is hoped to complete the undertaking in the course of the coming 

 year. 



Proposed biological survey of the inland waters of the State. With 

 the approval of the Commissioner of Education and Board of 

 Regents, the indorsement of the Forest, Fish and Game Commis- 

 sioner, the Health Commissioner and the assent of the Governor, 

 a special bill was introduced in the Legislature of 1905 asking 

 an appropriation for the biological study of our inland waters. 

 The proposition seemed wise and timely. The reports of the 

 original scientific survey of the State, published in 17 quarto 

 volumes under the title Natural History of New York, included 

 seven volumes devoted to descriptive zoology and botany. In 

 these the grosser forms of aquatic life were in part discussed but 

 many features which with the growth of knowledge and the impera- 

 tive demands of increasing civilization are now recognized as of 

 vast scientific and economic significance were not considered. 

 The fishes, reptiles, the larger crustaceans and mollusks were taken 

 into account but the minor organisms and their relations to fish 

 food and to sanitation, all problems relative to their distribution, 

 localization or diffusion, their origin, their adaptation to given 

 climatic or meteorologic conditions, their value as indexes of geologic 



