?64 THE CONDOR VoL. IX all its price must be years of hard work and frequent disappointment. The condition of the flower market, and the difficulty thru lack of adequate communication facilities, of success- fully competing with florists better situated than himself, told Mr. Childs that if he were to succeed, he must pursue an entirely original policy. Advertising at that time was in its youth and very few men had even a fair con- ception of its value. Mr. Childs was among the few. Commencing to advertise in a small way in a number of periodicals whose circula- tion would be likely to reach the people he desired to serve, he gradually increased his patronage as his trade increased, later com- mencing to issue a catalogue of his own. Today the number of catalogues which leave Floral Park each year is well over a million, and Mr. Childs' products are sent to nearly every important country in the world, an especially large trade being done with Australia and New Zealand. These catalogues are printed at Floral Park at the plant of the Mayflower Publishing Company, of which Mr. Childs is president. When this company was founded in x892 one small press was its capacity; today it has a large web, three cylinder, and three job presses, owns its own electrotyping plant, publishes a local weekly, and employs a total of sixty hands. "Of the products of Floral Park themselves little need be said, for their reputation is uni- versal. Mr. Childs has always striven to attain the best results possible to a florist who thoroly understands the science of his art, and a very large number of the most popular plants on the market today were originated by him. As a real estate operator Mr. Childs has also been unusually successful, having engineered a number of very profitable deals. At the pres- ent time he owns, besides his 300 acres at Floral Park, over 600 acres at St. James. In political life also Mr, Childs has long been a prominent figure. "But it is as a nataralist, perhaps, more than as anything else that Mr. Childs is well known. in the first place he has one of the finest private libraries in the world of North Ameri- can natural history. It includes Audubon's original work, Birds of America, as well as other rarities. Mr. Childs also possesse? the largest private collection of mounted North American birds extant, together with their nests and eggs, and has besides a collection of shells, insects, and minerals." The ornithological collection alone now numbers about xxro species and subspecies of North American Birds, and some xo3o species of eggs in full sets, many of them with nests in situ. Mr. Childs has recently become financially interested in southern California, and his visits to this coast are becoming frequent. We think we have grounds for the expectation that he will ultimately build a home here, and pos- sibly establish his museum in this climate, where collections are so little bothered by mold and other museum pests. The diminutive winter wren has worn the generic titles of Troglodytes, Anorthura and Olbiorchilus successively on the A. O. U. List during the past ten years. And now it is to moult again, so Dr. Alien and Mr. Stone both tell us. The latest exhumed name for the bird is _/Vannus. This name is brief, like the bird, and means a dwarf; therefore appropriate, and an improvement over any of the others. Long may it wave! It seems that the "possessives" are not yet exhausted as a subject for logical argu- ment. Mr. Henderson's communication in this issue certainly presents his views as to the correct usage in a convincing manner. Per- haps Mr. Dawson could knock them under, tho! Messrs. Frank M. Chapman and Louis Agas- siz Fuertes spent the earlier portion of the sum- mer in the Rocky Mountains of Canada. They made base camp at timberline, from which they were able to make intimate studies of such alpine-arctic species as the Leucosticte, Pipit and White-tailed Ptarmigan. We are glad to announce that after some- thil?g more than a year spent in Colorado and New Mexico, Mr. and Mrs. M. French Gilman have returned to their home at Banning? Cali- fornia. Mr. Gilman will now have more leisure for bird study, and expects to re-visit the Colorado Desert and adjacent mountain ranges with the purpose of tracing the distri- b?tion of certain birds and mammals. Mr. Murray Watson, M. C. O. C., has re- moved from California, and taken up his resi- dence in Denver, Colorado. That is getting to be a pretty lively center for bird workers of late. Mr. and Mrs. Vernon Bailey, of Washington, D. C., have been spending the summer in Biological Survey work in southern California. Mr. Henry B. Kaeding is visiting California again after an extended sojourn in Sinaloa, Mexico. Dr. T. S. Palmer, of the Biological Survey, visited Los Angeles in the early part of Septem- ber. His mission was to obtain evidence con- victing certain parties of elk-poaching in the Yellowstone National Park. Dr. Palmer is doing a valuable work in prosecuting special cases of game-law infringement, thus showing local wardens what can and should be done in that line. The Survey merits every possible
