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The Proceedings, begun in 1878, are intended for the publication, in separate form, of shorter papers. These are gathered in volumes, octavo in size, with the publication of each paper recorded in the table of contents of the volume.In the Bulletin series, the first of which was issued in 1875, appear longer, separate publications consisting of monographs (occasionally in several parts) and volumes in which are collected works on related subjects. Bulletins are either octavo or quarto in size, depending on the needs of the presentation. when we moved to the heart of their winter range in Oklahoma.Although they migrate through the plains states in enormous numbers and have been banded by the thousands in spring and fall, they are still birds of mystery. Only a handful have been studied through a winter, and none over a period of years. Perhaps it was a designing fate, certainly a happy coincidence, that led us after several years in town, to establish our permanent home on an acreage near Stillwater where Harris' sparrows shared our lawn and picnic place, our weedy chicken yard, and the brushy ravine that wound through our little pasture.These birds of mystery became our closest neighbors, constant guests at our winter feeding trays, and regular visitors to our banding traps.From its earliest history Harris' Sparrow has been surrounded by an aura of excitement and drama. Because its distribution is restricted to the center of the continent, not until 1834 did the eager eyes of science view it for the first time. Harry Harris (1919) The summer home of the Harris' sparrow remained mere conjecture until Edward A. Preble (1902) found it breeding at Churchill. Preble (1908b) also found it in 1903 along the eastern shore of Great Bear Lake "in a habitat precisely similar to its chosen nesting ground on Hudson Bay. All indications therefore point to the conclusion that its principal breeding grounds are in the strip of stunted timber extending for 800 miles between Hudson Bay and Great Bear Lake, along the northern border of the transcontinental forest." Ernest Thompson Seton (1908) (Youngworth, 1959). Then occurs a pause first noted by Cooke (1913) before the birds move on into the Dakotas and Minnesota in late April and May (Swenk and Stevens, 1929 Repeat records at banding stations (Swenk and Stevens, 1929) show that individuals may remain at given stopovers from 1 to 5 days during spring migration, averaging 1.5 days. In fall the periods are considerably longer, averaging 7 or 8 days, sometimes a month.The speed at which Harris' During late May and early June they saw numbers of birds daily on the barrens along the river, several miles from spruce timber; these they subsequently termed migrants on their way to more northwesterly regions. Of the nesting habitat at timberline they write: 'We found the birds most common at the edges of the woodlands, in clearings near the railway track, and in the bushy margins of burned-over areas. As a rule but one pair of birds lived in a given patch of spruces or tamaracks;...

ADVERTISEMENTThere is some question whether they represent the same species." In the second category is Vermivora cmcinnatiensis (Langdon), the Cincinnati warbler, described in 1880. "The unique type is regarded as a hybrid between Vermivora pinus (Linnaeus) and Oporornis (1911) writes, "almost every conceivable hypothesis has been advanced by one writer or another to fix its true status in our bird-fauna." In addition to being considered a valid species, it has been regarded as a hybrid (Brewster, 1881), as a dichromatic phase, that is, a leucochroic phase of V. pinus (Ridgway, 1887), as a mutant (Scott, 1905), and finally as a phase, "ancestral in character" (atavistic) of the goldenwing (C. W. Townsend, 1908).Lawrence's warbler is a very rare bird. The first specimen was described in 1874 (Herold Herrick, 1874, and since that time the bird was taken or seen infrequently, chiefly in regions where the breeding ranges of F. chrysoptera and V. pinus overlap. Consensus of opinion in the main regarded it as a hybrid between V. chrysoptera and F. pinus, as it combined characters of both the supposed parents. John Treadwell Nichols (1908) Recently Karl W. Haller (1940) described "a new wood warbler from West Virginia" from two specimens,, male and female, which he collected on May 30 and June 1, 1939, respectively, at points 18 miles apart, and proposed for it the new name Dendroica 'potomac^Sutton's warbler. These birds resemble the yellow-throated warbler in plumage but lack streaks on the sides. They also suggest the parula warbler in having a faint yellowish wash on the back and, in the male, "an almost imperceptible hint of raw sienna" on the upper breast. The male sang a song much like the parula's, but doubled by repetition.Two more Sutton's (1945). Another aberrant warbler has been described by Stanley G. Jewett (1944), who examined four specimens which show a curious intermingling of the plumage characters of the hermit and Townsend warblers.[Author's Note: Since the above was written, Kenneth C. Parkes (1951) has published a study of the genetics of the golden-wingedblue-winged warbler complex, to which the reader is referred. ] MNIOTILTA VARIA (Linnaeus) BLACK with "cinnamon-brown," "Mars brown," and "dark purplish drab"; others are boldly spotted and blotched with "russet" and "Vandyke brown," with underlying spots of "brownish drab," "light brownish drab," and "light vinaceous-drab." Speckled eggs are commoner than the more boldly blotched type. The markings are usually concentrated at the large end, and on some of the heavily spotted eggs there is a solid wreath of different shades of russet and drab. The measurements of 50 eggs average 17.2 by 13.3 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 18.8 by 13.7, 17.9 by 14.7, 15.7 by 12.7, and 16.3 by 12.2 millimeters (Harris) .]Toimg.-Cordelia J. Stanwood (MS.) speaks of the nestlings a few days from the^g g as "very dark gray, much like young j uncos and Nashville warblers." But when they leave the nest they are clearly...

ADVERTISEMENT The scientific publications of the National Museum include two series, known, respectively, as Proceedings and Bulletin. The Proceedings series, begun in 1878, is intended primarily as a medium for the publication of original papers, based on the collections of the National Museum, that set forth newly acquired facts in biology, anthropology, and geology, with descriptions of new forms and revisions of limited groups. Copies of each paper, in pamphlet form, are distributed as published to libraries and scientific organizations and to specialists and others interested in the different subjects. The dates at which these separate papers are published are recorded in the table of contents of each of the volumes. The series of Bulletins, the first of which was issued in 1875, contains separate publications comprising monographs of large zoological groups and other general systematic treatises (occasionally in several volumes), faunal works, reports of expeditions, catalogues of type specimens and special collections, and other material of similar nature. The majority of the volumes are octavo in size, but a quarto size has been adopted in a few instances in which large plates were regarded as indispensable.

Hoyt (1905) states that "in Florida they begin building the latter part of January, and if undisturbed the eggs are laid by February 10th." In 1937 James Tanner (MS.) discovered a nest in Louisiana from which the fledgling left on March 30, fully 2 months earlier than any previous records from the same locality, and in 1938 apparently the same pair of birds had young the last week in February.In contrast to these dates we find 10 records of April nesting, 5for May, and 1 (Beyer, 1900) of a young bird just out of the nest in July. The latter records might well constitute second attempts at nesting. The Florida birds, in general, start earlier than those in Louisiana, but at best there seems to be less regularity to the commencement of the nesting period than is found with most of our North American woodpeckers. In this, the ivorybill may register its affinity with tropical birds in general, the ivorybill being the most northern representative of an otherwise tropical or semitropical genus. There is some evidence for believing that ivorybills wander over considerably larger territories in winter than those to which they confine their activities in the spring, but little definite information has thus far been recorded on any of their before and after breeding activities. IVORY-BILLED WOODPECKER 6Courtship.-Nothing seems to have been written on the courtship of the ivorybill except the observations of Allen and Kellogg (1937) : Our only observations were made in Florida about 6 a. m., on April 13, 1924. We had discovered this pair of ivorybills at about the same time the preceding morning when they came out of the cypress swamp and preened their feathers and called a few times from the top of a dead pine before going off together to feed. They had made such a long flight the previous day that we were unable to find them again, but that night, still traveling together, they had returned to the same group of medium-sized cypress trees which they had apparently left in the morning and in which there was one fresh hole in addition to four or five other old ones in the near vicinity. On the morning of the 13th, they called as they left these cypress trees and flew to the top of a dead pine at the edge of the swamp, where they called and preened. Finally the female climbed up directly below the male and when she approached him closely he bent his head downward and clasped bills with her. The next instant they both flew out on to the "burn," where we followed their feeding operations for about an hour.Nesting.-As before stated, while there are a few records of February nesting, the most definite records are for March, April an ash or a hackberry, and is at a great height." There are, however, records of their nesting in live cypress, partially dead oaks, a dead royal-palm stub, "an old and nearly rotten white elm stump," etc., indicating about as great a variety as shown by the pileated woodpecker. The lowest authentic nest of which we have found a record, was that described by Beyer (1900) "about 25 feet up in a l...