144 Bird -Lore in this field into more intimate association and more thoroughly con- solidating their interests. The advantages of such consolidation seemed so evident that a call was issued August i, 1883, dated Cam- bridge and Washington, for "a convention of American Ornitholo- gists, to be held in New York city, beginning September 26, 1883." The call was signed by the editor of the ' Nuttall Bulletin' (J. A. Allen), associate! editor of the 'Nuttall Bulletin' (Elliott Coues), and the president of the Nuttall Club (William Brewster). The response to the call, sent to forty-eight of the more prominent ornithologists of the United States and Canada , was most cordial ; twenty-five ex- pressed their intention to attend the convention, and twenty-one were actually present, including several who came a thousand miles or more to attend the convention. Not only were by-laws adopted and officers duly elected, but, as will be noticed later, important lines of work were laid out and assigned to committees, the principle of cooperation being applied in a broad sense. * The Nuttall Ornithological Club is still an active and widely known organization, although upon the founding of the Union, it generously voted to discontinue its 'Bulletin' and to place its sub- scription list and good will at the service of the Union, which was already considering the desirability of establishing an official medium of publication. As a result, the 'Nuttall Bulletin' became 'The Auk,' which, in recognition of the generous action of the Nuttall Club, was officiall}' designated as the sccoinf scries of the 'Nuttall Bulletin.' Between isolated workers in any field, jealousies and misunderstand- ings 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 impor- tant details, which led to confusion, and a tendency to array our ornithologists into two somewhat hostile camps. This being recog- nized as a threatening evil of considerable gravity, one of the first 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 com- mittee long since became a matter of history. It was conducted with the utmost conscientiousness and care ; personal interests and personal bias were generously waived, differences of opinion were settled by appeal to facts and the evidence, with a result that agreement was established in respect to all points of nomenclature and other tech- nicalities, and a new impetus given to systematic investigation. Thus,
