Nov. 30, 1912 
FOREST AND STREAM 
691 
Brazilian Tree Duck in New Jersey. 
New York City, Nov. 21.— Editor Forest 
and Stream: In October last, my attention was 
called to an unusual duck in the shop of Thomas 
Rowland, a New York taxidermist. The bird 
proved to be a Brazilian tree duck, something 
of course quite unknown in this part of the 
world. It is a native of Eastern South America 
and of Western Africa, but is said to be rare 
even in its natural habitat. This specimen was 
killed on the Hackensack Meadows in New Jer¬ 
sey, and sent to the taxidermist for preserva¬ 
tion by Hon. John W. Griggs, of Paterson, N. J. 
Governor Griggs was kind enough to give me 
the circumstances of its capture. 
He was coming down the Hackensack River 
in a boat, when he observed this duck sitting on 
a drift log at a place where the tide overflowed 
the meadow, about a mile and a half above the 
village of Hackensack. Governor Griggs at once 
saw that the bird was unusual and had his boat¬ 
man approach it. As it was evidently a bird 
strange to the region, he felt that it should be 
captured, and shot it. It was alone and ap¬ 
peared to be not at all shy. It made no move¬ 
ment of alarm or suspicion. 
The bird showed no signs of having been 
in captivity. Its feathers were clean and its feet 
altogether normal. The fact of such an unusual 
occurrence in New Jersey seems to deserve pub¬ 
lic mention. Geo. Bird Grinnell. 
The Cock-of-the-Rock. 
New York City, Nov. 21.— Editor Forest 
a>ul Stream: Some weeks ago I saw a para¬ 
graph in Forest and Stream in which the cock- 
of-the-rock ( Rupicola crocea ) was described as 
a sort of crow. To say the least such a descrip¬ 
tion is rather misleading. J. J. Quelch, in speak¬ 
ing of the avian fauna of British Guiana truly 
says: “Brilliant even among its congeners is 
the unique and lovely cock-of-the-rock.” Even 
this latter statement is hardly adequate, for cer¬ 
tainly there is no more beautiful bird in equator¬ 
ial regions. Its rich orange plumage of the live¬ 
liest hue, together with its double crest running 
from the beack backward, and the delicate fila¬ 
ments of its wing feathers, make it peculiarly 
striking among its kind. 
When I lived in British Guiana, the cock- 
of-the-rock was domiciled on the upper reaches 
of the Mazaruni River, and so far as I know it 
rarely if ever wandered from its highland home. 
At the time I left South America, Sir Wil¬ 
liam Ingram had attempted to acclimatize birds 
of paradise and the cock-of-the-rock on the isl¬ 
and of Little Tobago, which lies east of Trini¬ 
dad. Whether or not the effort was successful 
I am entirely unable to say. J. W. Y., Jr. 
Wild Pigeon. 
Hendersonville, N. C., Nov. 4. — Editor 
Forest and Stream: I read with a great deal 
of interest Drayton F. Hastie’s letter in your 
issue of the 2d inst. It takes me back to my 
early boyhood days in the fifties and early sixties 
when the wild pigeons were in such great abund¬ 
ance. Now, in regard to the fall flight of these 
birds my statement, “All flocks were flying 
South,” I mean the general direction was al¬ 
ways southward. They passed through, in other 
words, from the North or Northern States south¬ 
ward. Really, to be more exact, the trend of the 
migrations was west of south. 1 accept, there¬ 
fore, the “Hastie amendment.” Now, these 
birds seemed to follow the valley, and as the 
Hastie home is really on a plateau of the Blue 
Ridge Mountains, the birds naturally turned to¬ 
ward the valley of the French Broad at that 
point, because of the long ridge of Pinnacle 
'Mountain, thus getting by so doing over the wide 
flats or bottom lands of the French Broad River, 
thence up the French Broad valley and so on 
over into North Georgia. 
It would be interesting to hear from points 
all along the line of their migration, for I rather 
think they may have turned more westwardly 
as they progressed in their journey. They never 
nested in these mountains, but evidently made a 
current nesting in Michigan and elsewhere. 
Grouse, I am told, are more plentiful than 
usual this season, and partridges (quail) are 
abundant everywhere. Ernest L. Ewbank. 
New York Zoological Society Report. 
The annual report of the Zoological So¬ 
ciety for 1911 is its sixteenth, and certainly there 
are few among those who, before and immedi¬ 
ately after the year 1895, were struggling to se¬ 
cure for New York city a Zoological Society 
and a park, could ever have believed that in 
sixteen or seventeen short years such tremend¬ 
ous results as here shown would have come from 
these early efforts. The society has now nearly 
2,000 members, of which nearly 1,600 are an¬ 
nual members. It has developed the largest 
zoological park in the world and a great 
aquarium, and reports an annual attendance at 
these two institutions of nearly three and one- 
half millions of people; in fact, the total num¬ 
ber of persons who have visited the Aquarium 
since it was opened fifteen years ago exceeds 
30 000,000. 
The year 1911 was an important one in the 
history of the Zoological Society. The New 
York Board of Estimate and Apportionment gave 
its approval to the new plan for the construction 
of a new Aquarium at Battery Park, and granted 
the funds to begin work. The Endowment Fund 
increased, and the finances are in admirable con¬ 
dition. A number of very interesting additions 
were made to the park’s collections of mammals, 
birds and reptiles, and to the collections installed 
in the Aquarium. 
During the year Captain John Sanford 
Barnes, a warm friend of the society, and one 
of the most important and forceful of the mem¬ 
bers of its executive committee, passed away. 
A zebra house, an eagle and vulture aviary 
and additional bear dens have been completed 
and are occupied. There was a large list of 
births in the garden, among them one of the 
Prjevalsky wild horse. The muskox herd has 
remained entirely healthy, and the little animals 
have grown. The walrus has also grown, though 
not so rapidly as was expected. The little 
gorilla, brought from Africa by Mr. Garner, 
lived only two months. 
Messrs. Beebe, curator of birds; Ditmars, of 
reptiles, and Mr. Merkle, in charge of construc¬ 
tion and forestry, all present reports of very 
great interest. 
Dr. C. H. Townsend, of the Aquarium, re¬ 
ports for that institution, and tells much that is 
interesting about the Albatross exhibition of 
1911, when the colony of elephant seals were 
discovered, of which six were brought to New 
York and were for a long time on exhibition. 
As usual, the report is beautifully illus¬ 
trated. 
At the New York Aquarium there are now, 
in the hatching trays, together with many other 
species of fish, a considerable number of the 
black-spotted trout which were taken last sea¬ 
son in the Yellowstone National Park. These 
fish were collected at the Yellowstone Lake, 
packed in ice and hauled by express wagons 
sixty or seventy miles to the railroad station at 
Gardner. From here by rail they are sent usually 
to the State Fish Hatchery at Bozeman, Mont., 
and Spearfish, S. D., and of course those that 
come to New York have to take their chances 
by rail. 
There is a great deal of interest to be seen 
at the Aquarium, and a useful and interesting 
half hour may be spent there every day by those 
who have the time. 
Destruction of Life in Spitzbergen. 
Dr. W. S. Bruce and Dr. R. N. R. Brown 
not long ago returned from their expedition, 
undertaken for the purpose of surveying in 
Spitzbergen. They made a detailed topographi¬ 
cal survey, and a general geological inquiry of 
the region they passed over. From Bjona Haven 
to Advent Bay, traveling by a new route, they 
saw no game whatever, though it is believed 
that foxes, ptarmigan and other game once 
abounded here. Norwegian hunters seem to 
have gone into the country and are destroying 
life as badly as if they were Americans. They 
habitually set out poison for birds, foxes and 
other animals, and unless severe measures are 
taken to protect the fauna of Spitzbergen, it 
will soon be absolutely exterminated. 
Notes on White Egrets. 
An island of two acres near Charleston, 
S. C., which has been the breeding ground of 
thousands of herons, including a large colony of 
snowy egrets, has been bought by citizens of 
Charleston and presented to the Charleston 
Museum to be kept as a permanent refuge. This 
action was taken because the owner of the 
island had started to clear it of the bushes (in 
which the herons nested) and put it in hay. A 
large number of the herons had been driven 
from the island through this action, but the 
museum plans to replant the island with bushes, 
and by this means restore the heronry com¬ 
pletely to its former condition. 
Montague Sharpe, chairman of the council 
for the Royal Society for the Protection of 
Birds, reports that during a recent visit to Egypt 
he elicited from various government officials the 
information that the egret has practically disap¬ 
peared from Lower Egypt. 
The Egyptian Department of Agriculture 
has issued a circular calling attention to the im¬ 
portance of protecting herons. 
By order of the State Game Commissioner, 
James A. Shinn, the sale of aigrettes in Colo¬ 
rado will not be permitted after Dec. 1, 1912. 
