150 STATEN ISLAND INSTITUTE of ARTS AND SCIENCES 
young a few days old, covered with whitish down, and also one 
egg. That this species and the yellow-billed cuckoo may have - 
young and unhatched eggs in the nest at the same time is well 
known, but the late nesting date here recorded is of interest. 
Thomas Nuttall in his Popular Handbook of the Birds of the 
United States and Canada mentions as of interest a nest of the 
yellow-billed cuckoo that he found on Aug. 28, for it as well as 
the black-billed species usually nest much earlier, as the birds de- 
part for the south in the month of September. 
The Oct. 27, 1923, meeting was held in the Public Museum. 
Mr. Charles W. Leng read a newspaper article by Mr. P. L. 
Sperr on muskrat trapping on Staten Island. 
Dr. A. W. Callisen read a paper: American and English Rural 
Life Compared. Having spent a number of years in rural Eng- 
land, as well as having been a farmer in New Jersey, Doctor Calli- 
sen was able to give an authoritative comparison and especially 
emphasized the stability of the English yeoman as quite contrasted 
to the changing ideas and methods of American farmers. ‘The 
deplorable condition of the farm worker in England in the past. 
compelled as he was to labor twelve, fourteen, or more hours a 
day by the farmer, who in turn was taxed to the last degree by the 
landowner, was commented upon, as was the inability of the 
farmer to prevent the crops from being ruined by the deer kept 
on the lord’s estate for his own pleasure. Contrasted with this 
was the American farmer who lived and thought in an opposite 
way and insisted upon his rights, as exemplified in the case where 
a farmer and his son, armed with shotguns, held off the hunt of 
the Meadow Brook Country Club and threatened legal action if 
they trespassed on his land. 
Mr. Wm. T. Davis exhibited mounted specimens of the fol- 
lowing plants from Staten Island: Quercus slicifolia Wang. from 
Watchogue. A number of young scrub oaks of this species still 
exist in three nearby localities in spite of many destructive fires. 
_Also several of the hybrids (Quercus brettont Davis) between 
this and Quercus marylandica are to be found at the locality where 
they were discovered in 1892 (Proc. Nat. Scr. Assoc. STATEN 
Is. Sep. 1892). 
