Part 4

Authors may or may not be indebted to reviewers of their works, but it is not often that reviewers are under obligations to the authors of the works they review. In the present instance, however, we feel that we must express our gratitude to the Messrs. Kearton for furnishing us with such an admirable demonstration of the kind of ornithology for which this journal stands. If, following the same lines, we can bring Bird-Lore to the high standard reached in 'With Nature and a Camera,' we shall have nearly approached our ideal.

Briefly, this book is a record of observation and photography by two ornithologists in Great Britain. Doubtless, no birds in the world have been more written about than the birds of this region, and still this book is filled with fresh and original matter, which is always interesting, and often of real scientific value.

Asked to explain how it was that in such a well-worked field the author of this volume had succeeded in securing so much new material, we should reply that we believed it was because he was an observer rather than a collector. Apparently realizing that to collect specimens of British birds would add but little to the store of our knowledge concerning them, he has devoted his time to a study of their habits, and in presenting the results of his labors, he has been most ably seconded by his brother, whose photographs of birds in nature have not, so far as we know, been excelled.

Perhaps the most forcible lesson taught by this book is the pleasure to be derived from photographing wild birds in nature, and the surprisingly good results which may be achieved by patient, intelligent effort. We do not recall a more adequately illustrated nature book, and its pictures not only claim our admiration because of their beauty, but also because they carry with them an assurance of fidelity to nature which no artist's pencil can inspire.

Bird Gods. By Charles de Kay. With decorations by George Wharton Edwards. A. S. Barnes & Co., New York. 12mo, pages xix + 249. Price, $2.

So singular a combination of ornithologist and mythologist is the author of 'Bird Gods' that students of birds, as well as of myths, will find his pages of interest. "Why," he asks himself, "should certain birds have been allotted to certain gods and goddesses in the Greek and Roman mythology? Why should the Eagle go with Zeus, the Peacock with Hera, the Dove with Venus, the Swan with Apollo, the Woodpecker with Ares, the Owl with Pallas Athené?" And his search for a reply to these questions has led him into many little-frequented by-paths of early European literature, in which he has found much curious information concerning the influence of birds on primitive religions. Impressed by the "share birds have had in the making of myth, religion, poetry and legend" he wonders at their wholesale destruction to-day, and ventures the hope that "recollection of what our ancestors thought of birds and beasts, of how at one time they prized and idealized them, may induce in us, their descendants, some shame at the extermination to which we are consigning these lovable but helpless creatures, for temporary gains or sheer brutal love of slaughter."

Birds of Washington and Vicinity. By Mrs. L. W. Maynard, with Introduction by Florence A. Merriam. Washington, D. C., 1898. 12 mo, pages 204. Cuts in the text, 18. Price, 85 cents.

In a prefatory note the author states that this book "has been prepared at the suggestion of the Audubon Society of the District of Columbia, in the belief that a local work giving untechnical descriptions of all birds likely to be seen in this vicinity, with something of the haunts and habits of those that nest here, will be useful to many who desire an acquaintance with our own birds, but do not know just how to go about making it."

The book seems admirably adapted to achieve this end. The opening pages by Miss Merriam are a capital introduction to the study of birds in the District of Columbia. They are followed by 'A Field Key to Our Common Land Birds,' and attractively written biographical sketches of the breeding species. The migrants and winter residents are treated more briefly, and an annotated 'List of All Birds Found in the District of Columbia,' by Dr. C. W. Richmond, is given. There are also nominal lists of winter birds, birds that nest within the city limits, etc., and an 'Observation Outline,' abridged from Miss Merriam's 'Birds of Village and Field.'

The book is, in fact, a complete manual of ornithology for the District of Columbia, and will undoubtedly prove an efficient guide to the study of the birds of that region.

Bird-Life: A Guide to the Study of Our Common Birds. Teachers' Edition. By Frank M. Chapman. With 75 full-page plates and numerous text-drawings by Ernest Seton Thompson. D. Appleton & Co. New York. 1899. 12mo, pages xiv + 269 + Appendix, pages 87.

This is the original edition of 'Bird-Life,' with an Appendix designed to adapt the work for use in schools. The new matter consists of questions on the introductory chapters of 'Bird-Life,' as, for instance, 'The Bird, its Place in Nature and Relation to Man,' 'Form and Habit,' 'Color,' 'Migration,' etc.; and, under the head of 'Seasonal Lessons,' a review of the bird-life of a year based on observations made in the vicinity of New York City. This includes a statement of the chief characteristics of each month, followed by a list of the birds to be found during the month, and, for the spring and early summer months, a list of birds to be found nesting.

For the use of teachers and students residing in other parts of the eastern United States there are annotated lists of birds from Washington, D. C., by Dr. C. W. Richmond; Philadelphia, Pa., by Witmer Stone; Portland, Conn., by J. H. Sage; Cambridge, Mass., by William Brewster; St. Louis, Mo., by Otto Widmann; Oberlin, Ohio, by Lynds Jones, and Milwaukee, Wis., by H. Nehrling.

The Appletons have also issued this book in the form of a 'Teachers' Manual,' which contains the same text as the 'Teachers' Edition,' but lacks the seventy-five uncolored plates.

This 'Teachers' Manual' is intended to accompany three 'Teachers' Portfolios of Plates,' containing in all one hundred plates, of which ninety-one, including the seventy-five plates published in 'Bird-Life,' are colored, while nine are half-tone reproductions of birds' nests photographed in nature. The one hundred plates are about equally divided in portfolios under the titles of 'Permanent Residents and Winter Visitants,' 'March and April Migrants,' and 'May Migrants and Types of Nests and Eggs.'

Audubon Bird Chart

A most practical step in Audubon educational work is the publication, by the Massachusetts Audubon Society, of a chart giving life-size, colored illustrations of twenty-six of our common birds. On the whole, both in drawing and coloring, these birds are excellent, and while a severe critic might take exception to some minor inaccuracies, the chart may be commended as the best thing of the kind which has come to our attention. It is accompanied by a pamphlet containing well written biographies, by Mr. Ralph Hoffmann, of the species figured. The chart is published by the Prang Educational Company, of Boston, from whom, with Mr. Hoffmann's booklet, it may be purchased for one dollar.

=Bird-Lore=

A Bi-monthly Magazine Devoted to the Study and Protection of Birds OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE AUDUBON SOCIETIES

=Edited by FRANK M. CHAPMAN= =Published by THE MACMILLAN COMPANY=

===================================================== Vol. 1 February, 1899 No. 1 =====================================================

=SUBSCRIPTION RATES.=

Price in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, twenty cents a number, one dollar a year, postage paid.

Subscriptions may be sent to the Publishers, at Harrisburg, Pa., or 66 Fifth avenue, New York City, or to the Editor, at Englewood, New Jersey.

Price in all countries in the International Postal Union, twenty-five cents a number, one dollar and a quarter a year, postage paid. Foreign agents, Macmillan and Company, Ltd., London.

Manuscripts for publication, books, etc., for review, should be sent to the Editor at Englewood, New Jersey. ----------------------------------------------------- Advertisements should be sent to the Publishers at 66 Fifth avenue, New York City. ----------------------------------------------------- COPYRIGHTED, 1899, BY FRANK M. CHAPMAN. -----------------------------------------------------

During the past six years New York and Boston publishers have sold over 70,000 text-books on birds, and the ranks of bird students are constantly growing. With this phenomenal and steadily increasing interest in bird-studies, there has arisen a widespread demand for a popular journal of ornithology which should be addressed to observers rather than to collectors of birds, or, in short, to those who study "birds through an opera-glass."

The need of such a journal has also been felt by the Audubon societies, and in concluding his report for the year 1898, Mr. Witmer Stone, chairman of the American Ornithologists' Union's Committee on Bird Protection, remarks on the necessity of a "magazine devoted to popular ornithology which could serve as an organ for the various societies and keep the members in touch with their work. All societies which have reached a membership of several thousand realize that it is impossible to communicate with their members more than once or twice a year, owing to the cost of postage, and the success of the societies depends largely upon keeping in communication with their members."

It is to supply this want of bird students and bird protectors that Bird-Lore has been established. On its behalf we promise to spare no effort to make it all that the most ardent bird student could desire, and, in the event of our success, we would appeal to all bird-lovers for such support as we may be deemed worthy to receive.

We have issued a 'Prospectus,' setting forth in part the aims of Bird-Lore, and as a matter of permanent record, we enter its substance here. It stated that Bird-Lore would attempt to fill a place in the journalistic world similar to that occupied by the works of Burroughs, Torrey, Dr. van Dyke, Mrs. Miller, and others in the domain of books. This is a high standard, but our belief that it will be reached will doubtless be shared when we announce that, with one or two exceptions, every prominent American writer on birds in nature has promised to contribute to Bird-Lore during the coming year. The list of contributors includes the authors just mentioned, Mabel Osgood Wright, Annie Trumbull Slosson, Florence A. Merriam, J. A. Allen, William Brewster, Henry Nehrling, Ernest Seton Thompson, Otto Widmann, and numerous other students of bird-life.

The Audubon Department, under Mrs. Wright's care, will be a particularly attractive feature of the magazine, one which, we trust, is destined to exert a wide influence in advancing the cause of bird-protection.

The illustrations will consist of half-tone reproductions of birds and their nests from nature, and on the basis of material already in hand, we can assure our readers that, whether judged separately or as a whole, this volume of Bird-Lore will contain the best photographs of wild birds which have as yet been published in this country.

At present Bird-Lore will contain from thirty-two to forty pages, but should our efforts to produce a magazine on the lines indicated be appreciated, we trust that the near future will witness a material increase in the size of each number.

=The Audubon Societies=

"_You cannot with a scalpel find the poet's soul, Nor yet the wild bird's song._"

Edited by Mrs. Mabel Osgood Wright (President of the Audubon Society of the State of Connecticut), Fairfield, Conn., to whom all communications relating to the work of the Audubon and other Bird Protective Societies should be addressed.

DIRECTORY OF STATE AUDUBON SOCIETIES

With names and addresses of their Secretaries.

=New Hampshire= Mrs. F. W. Batchelder, Manchester. =Massachusetts= Miss Harriet E. Richards, care Boston Society of Natural History, Boston. =Rhode Island= Mrs. H. T. Grant, Jr., 187 Bowen street, Providence. =Connecticut= Mrs. Henry S. Glover, Fairfield. =New York= Miss Emma H. Lockwood, 243 West Seventy-fifth street, New York City. =New Jersey= Miss Mary A. Mellick, Plainfield. =Pennsylvania= Mrs. Edward Robins, 114 South Twenty-first street, Philadelphia. =District of Columbia= Mrs. John Dewhurst Patten, 3033 P street, Washington. =Wheeling, W. Va.= Elizabeth I. Cummins, 1314 Chapline street, (branch of Penn Society) Wheeling. =Ohio= Miss Clara Russell, 903 Paradrome street, Cincinnati. =Indiana= Amos W. Butler, State House, Indianapolis. =Illinois= Miss Mary Drummond, Wheaton. =Iowa= Miss Nellie S. Board, Keokuk. =Wisconsin= Mrs. George W. Peckham, 646 Marshall street, Milwaukee. =Minnesota= Mrs. J. P. Elmer, 314 West Third street, St. Paul.

This department will be devoted especially to the interests of active Audubon workers, and we earnestly solicit their assistance, as our success in making it a worthy representative of the cause for which it stands largely depends upon the heartiness of their coöperation. Others also, who are lovers and students of nature in many forms, but who have never, for divers reasons, engaged in any bird protective work, may, through reading of the systematic and effective methods of the societies, become convinced of the necessity of personal action.

We intend at once to establish the more practical side of the department by printing in an early issue a bibliography of Audubon Society publications, in order that anyone interested may know exactly what literature has appeared and is available. For this reason we ask the secretaries of all the societies to send us a complete set of their publications, stating, if possible, the number of each which has been circulated, and, when for sale, giving the price at which they may be obtained.

We also request the secretaries to send us all possible news of their plans and work, not merely statistics, but notes of anything of interest, for even the record of discouragements, as well as of successes, may often prove full of suggestion to workers in the same field, and aid toward developments that will broaden and strengthen the entire movement. A movement in complete harmony with the great desire of thinking people for a broader life in nature, which is one of the most healthful and hopeful features of the close of this century.

M. O. W.

Reports of Societies[A]

[Footnote A: The editor acknowledges the receipt from Mr. Witmer Stone, chairman of the Committee on Bird Protection of the American Ornithologists' Union, of a number of the following reports, which, before the establishment of an official organ for the Audubon Societies, had been sent to Mr. Stone for inclusion in his annual report to the A. O. U., from which, through lack of space, they were necessarily omitted.]

THE MASSACHUSETTS SOCIETY

The Massachusetts Audubon Society has reissued the Audubon Calendar of last year and it is having a good sale. The drawings were made especially for the calendar by a member of the society; the originals are painted in water colors on Japanese rice paper, and are very artistic bird portraits. The same artist is now at work on drawings of new birds for a calendar for 1900, which the directors hope will be reproduced by a more accurate and satisfactory process.

The Bird Chart of colored drawings of twenty-six common birds, which the Directors undertook last spring, is now ready. The drawings have all been especially made for the chart by E. Knobel and are reproduced by the Forbes Lithograph Manufacturing Co., on twelve stones. Some of our best ornithologists have seen the color proof and pronounce it good. The society has published a descriptive pamphlet to accompany the chart which has been prepared by Ralph Hoffmann. His sketches of the birds are delightfully written, and the book is valuable in itself.[B]

[Footnote B: See note on this chart and pamphlet in _Book News and Reviews_.]

The Directors have recently sent out a new circular mainly in Boston and vicinity, which briefly describes the work undertaken and asks for further coöperation from interested persons, and states that "in addition to our first object, the support of other measures of importance for the further protection of our native birds has been assumed by the Society." Among such measures may be mentioned:

1. Circulation of literature.

2. Improved legislation in regard to the killing of birds, and the better enforcement of present laws.

3. Protection during the season for certain breeding places of Gulls, Herons and other birds, which, without such protection will soon be exterminated.

4. Educational measures. This includes the publication of colored wall charts of birds, Audubon Calendars and other helps to bird study.

The response to this circular has been gratifying.

The society now numbers over twenty-four hundred persons, twenty-six of these are Life Associates, having paid twenty-five dollars at one time; four hundred and seventy-five are Associates, paying one dollar annually; the remaining are Life Members, having paid twenty-five cents.

While the rage for feather decoration is unabated, we feel that there is steadily growing a sentiment among our best people in condemnation of the custom. There is a noticeable decrease in the use of aigrettes and of our native birds, excepting the Terns and the plumage of the Owl; and a marked increase in the employment of the wings and feathers of the barnyard fowl. While the latter continue to feed the fashion they are harmless in themselves.

Harriet E. Richards, _Sec'y._

THE RHODE ISLAND SOCIETY

The Audubon Society of Rhode Island was organized in October, 1897, and has now about 350 members.

The purposes of the society, according to its by-laws, are: the promotion of an interest in bird-life, the encouragement of the study of ornithology, and the protection of wild birds and their eggs. Some work has been done in the schools, abstracts of the state laws relating to birds have been circulated throughout the state, lectures have been given, and a traveling library has been purchased for the use of the branch societies.

Nearly five thousand circulars of various kinds have been distributed, and it is evident that the principles of the society are becoming well known and are exerting an influence, even in that difficult branch of Audubon work, the millinery crusade.

Annie M. Grant, _Sec'y._

THE CONNECTICUT SOCIETY

A score of ladies met in Fairfield on January 28, 1898, and formed "The Audubon Society of the State of Connecticut." Mrs. James Osborne Wright was chosen president and an executive committee provisionally elected, representing so far as possible at the beginning, the State of Connecticut.

An effort was made to find every school district in the state, and a Bird-Day programme was sent to 1,350 of these schools. Care was naturally used to see that the rural schools, at least, should be reached. Through the kindness of Congressman Hill of this district, one of our vice-presidents, 740 copies of Bulletin No. 54, 'Some Common Birds in their Relation to Agriculture,' issued by the United States Department of Agriculture, were received by the secretary, and 600 of these have been mailed to individuals.

The Society has had two lectures prepared, one by Willard G. Van Name, entitled 'Facts About Birds That Concern the Farmer,' illustrated by sixty colored lantern slides, and one by Mrs. Mabel Osgood Wright, on 'The Birds About Home,' illustrated by seventy colored slides. A parlor stereopticon has been purchased for use in projecting the slides.

The lectures and slides are intended primarily for the use of the local secretaries of the society, and after these for such members of the society as desire to give educational entertainments in the interest of bird protection.

The only expense connected with the use of the lectures and slides will be the expressage from Fairfield to place and return.

Under no circumstances will the outfit be allowed to go outside of the State of Connecticut.

The oil lantern accompanying the slides is suitable for a large parlor or school room, and can be worked by anyone understanding the focussing of a photographic camera, but it is advised that when the audience is to be composed of more than fifty people the exhibitor should secure a regular stereopticon.

Applications should be made at least two weeks before the outfit is desired.

_No admission fee is to be charged at any entertainment at which the outfit is used_, the intention of the Audubon Society of the State of Connecticut being to furnish free information about our birds, and so win many, who may never have given the matter a thought, to a sense of the necessity and wisdom of their protection.

The secretary is glad to report on January 1, 1899, that the society has had practical proof of the success of its experiment in sending out these free illustrated lectures. Much interest has been awakened by them, and the State Board of Agriculture has listed both lectures for the Farmers' Institutes, held during the winter months. Much enterprise is being shown by local secretaries. An illustrated lecture by Mrs. Kate Tryon, having been given in Bridgeport, November 19, under the auspices of Miss Grace Moody (local secretary), Mrs. Howard N. Knapp, and Mrs. C. K. Averill. While Mr. Frank M. Chapman lectured before a large audience at the Stamford High School, on December 2, under the auspices of Mrs. Walter M. Smith, the local secretary of that city.

Harriet D. C. Glover, _Cor. Sec'y and Treas._

NEW YORK SOCIETY

Since November, 1897, the society has distributed 13,465 leaflets, making a total distribution of over 40,000 since its organization on February 23, 1897.

In spite of this large circulation of literature, the society has only 529 members, including 9 patrons, 7 sustaining members, 356 members, 157 junior members.

Financially, the society is now in a sound condition.

During the year two public meetings have been held in the large lecture hall of the American Museum of Natural History, at both of which the hall was well filled. Addresses were made by Dr. Henry van Dyke, Dr. Heber Newton, and others.

A 'Bird Talk' was also given by Mr. W. T. Hornaday, at the house of one of the honorary vice-presidents, which was well attended.