AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 



41 



which has had vast influence in standardizing the rules of nomenclature 

 the world over. 1 



Still another important A. O. U. Committee had its inception at the 

 first meeting of the Union in 1883, namely, a Committee on the Protection 

 of North American Birds, which carried on the work of bird protection for 

 many years with great energy and very important results. From it origi- 

 nated later the so-called Audubon Societies movement, from which, through 

 the special efforts of one of its enthusiastic members, William Dutcher, 

 was developed the present powerful organization known as the National 

 Association of Audubon Societies. From this committee also emanated 

 the A. O. U. "Model Bird Law," which has been enacted by most of the 

 States in this country and the Provinces of Canada, in the essential phrase- 

 ology of the committee's draft. In this work I shared actively, furnishing 

 in 1886 most of the matter for the ' Bulletins ' of the committee, issued first 

 in 'Science' and afterwards separately reprinted in large editions. 



For many years my interest in the activities and welfare of the American 

 Ornithologists ' Union was absorbing. For seven years I was its president, 

 for twenty-seven years the editor of its journal 'The Auk' and its other 

 publications; and a member of its Committee on the Classification and 

 Nomenclature of North American Birds from 1883 to date. For twenty- 

 eight years I maintained an unbroken record of attendance at its annual 

 congresses and council meetings. 



Before leaving Cambridge I had begun to take a more or less active 

 part in the work of the Boston Society of Natural History, having served 

 as acting secretary and editor of its publications for a number of months, 

 to fill an interim, and for a number of years had been a member of its Council. 



On my arrival in New York I was warmly welcomed by the New York 

 Academy of Sciences, and almost immediately given a place on its Council, 

 and later for several years was a Vice-President; but I failed to identify 

 myself heartily with its interests, due in part to limitations imposed by 

 impaired health. 



My affiliation with the Linnsean Society of New York was more intimate, 

 and the office of president for a number of years never proved very strenuous, 

 as the attendance was usually small and the meetings more or less informal 

 and semisocial. 



1 A revised edition of the A. O. U. Code was published in 1910, in which the article adopted by the 

 International Congress in 1909, newly defining the method for the determination of types of genera, 

 was substituted for the corresponding matter in the original A. O. U. Code. 



The editing and carrying through the press of the three editions of the Check-List and of fifteen 

 of its sixteen supplements, and also the original and the revised editions of the Code, was a labor of 

 love for the author of these ' Notes.' 



Elliott Coues was chairman of the Nomenclature Committee from its inception in 1883 till his death 

 in 1899. He was succeeded by C. Hart Merriam, who held this position till 1904, when he was suc- 

 ceeded by the writer, who resigned in 1912. 



