The American Ornithologists' Union will meet 5-9 September 1966 at Duluth,
Minnesota, as guests of the Minnesota Ornithologists' Union; the Biology Department,
University of Minnesota, Duluth; and the Duluth Bird Club. Registration will be
open from 10 A.r. to 8 P.. on Monday 5 September and from 8 A.r. to 5 P.. on
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in the Kirby Student Center Lobby. Scientific
sessions will be held Tuesday through Thursday 6-8 September in the Education 80
Auditorium.
A Circular of Information providing details of the meeting and a formal call for
papers by the Committee on the Scientific Program (Chairman: Dr. Robert A.
McCabe, 424 University Farm Place, Madison, Wisconsin) will be circulated to the
A.O.U. Membership by late April.
Meetings of the Fellows and of the Fellows and Elective Members will be held
in the afternoon and evening, respectively, on Monday 5 September. The Council
will hold its first meeting at 9 A.r. Monday morning 5 September. The Annual Ban-
quet will be held Thursday evening 8 September. Field trips are planned for Friday 9
September.
The Laboratory of Ornithology, at Cornell University, announces that the first
year of the North American Nest-record Card Program went very xvell. The La-
boratory mailed over 45,000 cards to individuals and regional centers from Florida
to Alaska and over 23,000 completed cards were received from 700 individuals. Now
on hand are over 500 cards for the Eastern Phoebe, Tree and Barn swallows, House
Wren, Catbird, Eastern Bluebird, Common Grackle, and Red-winged Blackbird. The
last has been selected for a computer trial and data from 2,300 cards on that species
are being punched onto IBM cards.
The principal aim of the program is to accumulate a large number of data on the
breeding biology of birds of the entire North American continent. These data will be
stored on IBM cards in a form ready for analysis and, once processed, will be avail-
able to researchers interested in such areas of avian biology as annual and geographic
variation in breeding seasons, clutch size, fledging periods, and nesting success. It
is hoped that the program will also play a key role in the study of man's modifica-
tion of his environment through marsh drainage, urbanization, and the use of pesti-
cides.
Data are needed from all parts of the country, from city parks and backyards, of
common species, as urgently as from remote parts of the continent. The cooperation
of all competent field observers is needed. Individuals are asked to get in touch with
local organizations and learn if they are cooperating as regional centers. If they
are not, new club efforts may be organized. Individuals may also obtain cards
directly from the Laboratory. In any case, those interested are asked to write to
NORTt A3/IERICAN NEST-RECORD CARD PROGRAM, LABORATORY OF ORNITtOLOGY, 33 SAP-
S.rCKER WOODS ROAD, ITHACA, NEW YORK 14580, including zip code with return
address.
The original records of the Bird Survey Committee of the Detroit Audubon Society
are filed in the Library of the CRABROOK ISTXTUTE Or SCtECE, BZOOrmELD HtZLS,
MtCrtOAta 48013 (to which requests for information should be addressed), and are
available for ornithological research.
The records consist (1) of 33,000 detailed individual nest cards for the 148 species
known to breed in the Detroit-Windsor area, filed by species in chronological order
1945-65; (2) report forms submitted by individual observers showing the numbers,
dates, and localities of all birds observed, filed by season 1947-65; and (3) "species
sheets" for the 10 years (1945-54) of a survey reported in 1963.
The Detroit Audubon Society and the Cranbrook Institute of Science hope that
these records will find much use.
J. Delacour and D. Amadon of The American Museum of Natural History are
writing a monograph on the family Cracidae and would welcome unpublished informa-
tion.
We have learned with regret of the death in Dorset, England, of Mr. Wilfred
Backhouse Alexander on December 18, 1965 in his eighty-first year. A Correspond-
ing Fellow of the A.O.U., Mr. Alexander was known to two generations of ornitholo-
gists for his unique and useful Birds o/ the ocean, first published in 1928.
Mr. W. Lee Chambers, Fellow of the A.O.U., and for many years a pillar of the
Cooper Ornithological Society, passed away peacefully at Topanga, California, on
January 8, 1966, in his eighty-seventh year.
His many friends will regret the passing, on February 12, 1966, in Savannah,
Georgia, of Mr. Ivan R. Tompkins, Elective Member of the A.O.U. and an active
student of southeastern ornithology.