350 
FOREST AND STREAM 
You can leave New York 
at night and be in the Maine 
woods the next day. 
Deer. Open season, Oct. 1 to Dec. 15. 
Open season, Nov. 1 to Nov. 30. 
Open season, all the year. 
Partridge. Open season, Sept. 15 to Dec. 1. 
Dock. Open season, Sept. 1 to Dec. 15. 
Finest shooting in America. 
aine 
A wonderful hunting country covering nearly 
15,000 square miles. Yet easily accessible from 
New York, Philadelphia and Boston. 
Hotels and camps famous for their cooking and comfort. 
You are sure to bag big game, and to have an outdoor 
experience you can never forget. 
Send for full information of how and where to go, and list of guides. 
Address VACATION BUREAU 
171 Broadway, Room 214, New York, N. Y. 
New York, New Haven & Hartford R. R. 
Boston & Maine R. R. Maine Central R. R. 
AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY. 
Forty-fourth annual meeting to 'be held in 
Washington, D. C., September 30 to October 3, 
1914. 
IMPORTANT NOTICE! 
Change of Place of Meeting—For reasons 
which need not be discussed here, the executive 
committee has found it advisable to change the 
place of meeting from New Orleans, La., to 
Washington, D. C. The date has not been 
changed. 
The headquarters and place of meeting in 
Washington will be announced later by the local 
committee. 
Numerous titles of papers for this meeting 
have already been received by the secretary. 
Some of those who have promised to contribute 
are President H. B. Ward, Dr. Chas. H. Town¬ 
send, Dr. Tarleton H. Bean, Mr. John W. Tit- 
comb, Prof. L. L. Dyche, Dr. B. W. Evermann, 
Mr. M. C. Marsh, Prof. Edwin Linton, Dr. G. A. 
MacCallum, Mr. John N. Cobb, Dr. Walter E. 
Sullivan, Dr. George F. White, Mr. John T. 
Nichols, Mr. Adrian Thomas and Mr. E. N. 
Carter. 
These papers cover many phases of our work, 
such as aquatic biology, diseases of fishes, para¬ 
sitology, utilization • of fisheries products, com¬ 
mercial fisheries and fish culture. The secre¬ 
tary will appreciate it if other members will 
send in titles of papers as soon as possible. If 
it should be impossible for you to attend the 
meeting, send in your paper to the secretary 
anyhow. 
It is certain that the meeting will be very in¬ 
teresting and profitable and a large attendance 
is expected. Don’t hesitate, but come. 
The officers for this meeting are: Prof. Hen¬ 
ry B. Ward, Urbana, Ill., President; Mr. Daniel 
B. Fearing, Newport, R. I., Vice-President; Dr. 
George W. Field, Sharon, Mass., Corresponding 
Secretary and Mr. Chas. W. Willard, Westerly, 
R. I., Treasurer. 
Executive Committee: Jacob Reighard, Chair¬ 
man, Ann Harbor, Mich.; N. R. Buffer, Harris¬ 
burg, Pa.; J. Quincy Ward, Frankfort, Ky.; 
George W. Graham, Springfield, Mass.; George 
W. Miles, Indianapolis, Ind.; Ernest Schaeffle, 
San Francisco. Cal. and T. A. Davries, New Or¬ 
leans, La. 
DR. RAYMOND C. OSBURN, Secretary, 
The Aquarium, New York City. 
BIRDS AND THE ALFALFA WEEVIL. 
(Continued from page 338-) 
Of our native species Brewer’s Blackbird is 
the most voracious devourer of weevils. A 
female collected in May, 1911, had eaten 25 adults 
and 246 larvae, comprising 89 per cent, of the 
food. In June the food of the adult Brewer’s 
Blackbird was almost one-third weevils, and a 
single individual of this species holds the banner 
record so far as known, having been found to 
contain 374 larvae, 65 pupae, and three adult 
weevils—442 individuals, comprising 96 per cent, 
of the stomach contents. 
The western vesper sparrow, western savannah 
sparrow, western lark sparrow, and western chip¬ 
ping sparrow, all do good work in destroying 
weevils. On the other hand, the swallows, while 
taking weevils to some extent, can capture them 
only during their flight in the air. This lasts 
for a short time only. The warblers, sage 
thrasher, chickadee, western robin, and mountain 
bluebird are all serviceable, but not notably so. 
The English Sparrow is extraordinarily abun¬ 
dant in the infested region, building its nest 
largely in the straw and hay-covered sheds for 
housing live stock. For the purpose of investi¬ 
gating the 'habits of the young English Sparrow 
more than a thousand specimens were examined, 
and these were found to have consumed a enor¬ 
mous quantity of the weevils- The study of the 
birds was divided into half-monthly periods, be¬ 
ginning May 1st. It was found that from May 
1st to 15th the weevils constituted 14 per cent, 
of the young Sparrows’ food; for the next 15 
days more than 36 per cent, were eaten; from 
June 1st to 15th more than 26 per cent.; from 
June 16th to 30th more than 18 per cent. Then 
the quantity dropped off rapidly. It was noted 
that the adult sparrows made trips between the 
feeding ground and their nests every 5 1*3 
minutes, or a little more than 11 trips an hour. 
If the young were fed during a period of 12 
hours each day, this would be 132 trips. The ob¬ 
server’s notes show that during a single journey 
about 15 larvae of the weevil were brought to 
the nest, and this would be a total of nearly 
2,000 weevils consumed daily by a single brood, 
and as these young birds are likely to remain 
parents for some time after this, the total con¬ 
sumption of a brood would very likely reach 
in the nest about 10 days and are fed by their 
