The Kmu. 
3 
following, when a simple code of rules and a representative list 
of office-bearers be proposed for adoption. 
FUTURE WORK. 
Already the membership roll includes workers whose names 
are known beyond Australasia, and though the Union is not 
confined to men who have made so prominent a mark, but 
includes ordinary bird-lovers as well as scientific ornithologists 
and oologists (this was necessary to secure the diffusion of 
knowledge), it should do excellent work. None will deny that 
there is a wide field to engage the attention of such a body, 
or that there is much to be done both in the field and the 
cabinet. There are technicalities to be settled, doubtful points 
to be cleared up, and mysteries of nesting, &c., to solve. Our 
knowledge of bird life is incomplete ; it is probable that many 
new species remain to be discovered ; and some of the genera 
are in danger of passing away altogether unless something is 
done to save them. The efforts of isolated workers cannot be 
so effective in such a cause as if all interested acknowledge 
their undoubted interdependence and combine to render mutual 
aid, to correct one another's observations, deductions, or plans 
by the light of their own experience, and to assist in the 
common cause. 
The Australasian Union has a very similar task before it to 
that which the American Union had, and surely there is no 
reason why it should not achieve as good results. It ought to 
be possible to v/rite of our Union, when it has been as long 
established, in language like that employed by Dr. J. A. Allen, 
the first president of the American Ornithologists' Union, 
sixteen years after that body had been formed. What he says 
emphasizes the need of united action, and shows what can be 
accomplished by it. 
" Between isolated workers in any field, jealousies and misunderstandings 
arise, which personal contact tends to obliterate. Such was the case with 
our ornithologists for some, years prior to the founding of the Union. 
There were two rival check lists of North American birds, each, perhaps, 
equally authoritative, though differing in important details, which led to 
confusion and a tendency to array our ornithologists into two hostile camps. 
This being recognized as a threatening evil of considerable gravity, one of 
the tirst acts of the Union was to appoint a committee on the classification 
and nomenclature of North American birds, so constituted as to include the 
most competent authorities on the subject and at the same time safeguard 
all conflicting interests. The work of this committee long since became a 
matter of history. It was conducted with the utmost conscientiousness and 
care ; personal interests and personal bias were generously wai\"ed ; differ- 
ences of opinion were settled by appeals to facts and the evidence, with the 
result that agreement was established in respect to all points of nomen- 
clature and other technicalities, and a new impetus given to systematic 
investigation. Thus, through the work of this committee alone, one of 
the primar}' objects in view in founding this Union was most happily 
accomplished."' 
After alluding to such important matters as " Bird ^Migration," 
