Bird-Lore song came again, sweet and mellow as be- fore ; this time I could plainly seethe Jay's open bill and the muscular movements of his throat. I could hardly believe my eyes, as I had been accustomed to hear only harsh sounds from a Jay's throat. I raised to a standing posture, the Blue Jay flew awa)-. I looked carefully all about, and no other birds were in sight. This Blue Jay remained in the neighborhood all winter, and several times I had the pleasure of hearing his sweet little song.— Frank E. HoRACK, lozva City, lozva. To Hunt Southern Birds Rockville Centre, L. I., November g. — O. H. Tuthill and Robert T. Willmarth, of this village, Benjamin Molitor, of East Rockaway, and Coles Powell, of Seaford, started yesterday on a bird skinning and stuffing expedition to the Florida coast. The men went aboard of Mr. Molitor's lit- tle 28-foot sloop, Inner Beach, which is fitted with both sails and gas engine. They take the inside route through bays, rivers and canals to Beaufort, N. C. From there on to their destination they will have to take their chances outside on the ocean. The men go to shoot all kinds of water birds, for which there is an unprecedented demand this season by millinery manufac- turers. After being killed, most of the birds will be skinned and stuffed roughly with cotton, and every week shipments will be made to New York. Mr. Tuthill is an old hand in the busi- ness. The last time there was a large de- mand for birds by the makers of women's headgear, about twelve years ago, he took an outfit to Florida and during the winter shipped 140,000 bird skins to New York. — Brooklyn Ea,£{/f. • [We met Mr. Tuthill in Key West in February, 1892, and heard him state that during a preceding winter his party had killed 130,000 birds for millinery purposes, and the information contained in the above clipping is doubtless, therefore, accurate. — Eu.] American Ornithologists' Union The seventeenth annual congress of the American Ornithologists' Union convened at the Academy of Natural Sciences, in Philadelphia, on November 13, 1899. At the business meeting held on the night of that day the following officers were elected for the ensuing year : President, Robert Ridgway ; vice presidents, C. Hart Mer- riam and C. B. Cory ; secretary, John H. Sage ; treasurer, William Dutcher ; coun- cilors, C. F. Batchelder, F. M. Chapman, I^uthven Deane, J. Dwight, Jr., A. K. Fisher, T. S Roberts, Witmer Stone. Two corresponding and eighty-two associate members were elected. The program for the three days' public sessions, on November 14-16, included the following papers : Notes on the Flammulated Screech Owls, Harry C. Oberholser ; Three Years' Mi- gration data on City Hall Tower, Philadel- phia, Wm. L. Bailey ; A Quantitative Study of Variation in the Smaller Ameri- can Shrikes, lieuben M. Strong ; The Hab- its and Structure of Harris' Cormorant, R E. Snodgrass and F. A. Lucas ; Bering Sea Arctic Snowflake [Passcritia hyper- borea) on its breeding grounds, C. Hart Merriam ; On the Plumages of Certain Bo- real Birds, Frank M. Chapman ; On the Perfected Plumage of Somateria specta- bilis, Arthur H. Norton ; The Summer Molting Plumage of Eider Ducks, Witmer Stone ; An Oregon Fish Hawk Colony, Vernon Bailey ; Exhibition of a series of field sketches made from absolutely fresh birds, showing the true life colors of the soft parts, mostly in the breeding season, Louis Agassiz Fuertes ; The Sequence of Plumages and Molts in Certain Families of North American Birds, Jonathan Dwight, Jr.; The Ranges of Hylocichla fiiscescetis and Hylocichla f. salicicola, Reginald Heber Howe, Jr.; On the occurrence of the Egyptian Goose ( Clicnalopex (I'gyp- tiaca) in North America, Frank C. Kirk- wood ; Notes on the Habits of the Great Mexican Swift {f/emiprocnc zoua)-is), Sam'l N. Rhoads ; Further remarks on the Relationships of the Crackles of the Sub- genus Qidscalus, Frank M. Chapman ; Audubon's Letters to Baird — compiled from Copies of the originals kindly fur- nished by Miss Lucy H. Baird, Witmer Stone ; A Peculiar Sparrow Hawk, Wil- liam Palmer ; The Requirements of a Fau- nal List, W. E. Clyde Todd ; Report of
