and the correctness of which receives constantly fresh proof as the results of closer studies are published. When Comstock uses the word "butterfly," he means all the diurnals except the Skippers, the family Hesperiada. Thus he connects the Papilionides with the other diurnals, including the Blues, and merely regards them as thrown off at an early period. The Papilionides are thus placed at the base of his "butterfly" system, and the Lycænids and Hesperids are divorced, as in Mr. Scudder's arrangement. My course is the very opposite of this. I unite the Skippers with the Blues and connect both with the Nymphalids and Whites (the affinity of which two groups is pointed out by Chapman) under the name Hesperiades, and I show that this distinct stem of the Lepidoptera is open to the moths. I then separate the Papilionides as a closed group, having great analogy but no affinity with the rest of the diurnals. The Skippers (Hesperiada) are really what they appear to be on the surface, an intermediate type between the Lycanids and the moths, assisting in keeping the phylogenetic line open in that direction. But they represent an old and now specialized type, and their proper characters have been made of undue importance by anxious classificators, who have then called them by hard and peculiar names. I try to show that the Skippers are an offshoot of the same main stem which gives us the brush-footed butterflies and the Pierids, from which groups they are not excluded by any character of primary value. The reversal of the generic arrangement within the group of Papilionides is based on neurational features, which prove to me that the Parnassians are more specialized and younger forms. A mere general survey of the group seems to show that this view is reasonable. It must be admitted that Ornithoptera is an unusual and original-looking type, compared with the bulk of the diurnals, and one still rich in species in the Australian area. It seems incredible that such a local type should be the offshoot of widely disseminated and more specialized forms of Papilio, to say nothing of the Parnassians. On the other hand, it appears not unreasonable to assume that Ornithoptera-like butterflies should have thrown off the forms of Papilio, many of which retain ornithopteran traits, and to believe that, through dispersal, the suffering of geographic and geologic (climatic) change, the Parnassian types should at length appear. So like the Pierids do the associating Parnassians become, that Mr. Reuter welds them with a nomenclatorial clamp, and Dr. Spuler draws us a radiating figure, from which they equally project (Zur Stammgeschichte der Papilioniden, p. 492). Such progeny, so dissimilar in essentials, cannot have had a common womb. But when we examine the pale Parnassian from northern meadows, and the black and gold Ornithopteron from openings in the tropical forest, then the short anal vein on their fore wings reveals in both cases the blood of the Papilionides, the proof of common descent and of a separate origin from the Pierids and the rest of the butterflies. It is Dr. Spuler (1. c.) who derives Ornithoptera from Papiliolike forms, so that I am totally at variance with this author in my views as to the classification and phylogeny of the Papilionides. While Dr. Spuler regards Ornithoptera as an end form, terminating a Papilionid branchlet, I consider it to represent an initial type coming nearer to the primitive form of the diurnal Papilionides. I have been thus explicit in order to give clearly the radical points of distinction between the classification of the diurnals by any other author and my own. Stated Meeting, October 20, 1899. Vice-President SELLERS in the Chair. Present, 22 members. Newly elected members, Mr. Stuart Wood, Dr. Arthur V. Meigs and Prof. Remington, were presented to the Chair and took their seats in the Society. The decease of the following members was announced: Prof. Edward Orton, of Columbus, O., October 17, 1899, and Prof. Don Mariano Barcena, of the City of Mexico. Mr. Henry Carey Baird read an obituary notice of the late Col. Alexander Biddle. Proceedings of Officers and Council were submitted. Pending nominations for membership having been read, the Society proceeded to an election. The Curators presented the completed bound volumes of the Curators' Record of Donations, with Index; also, the bound volume of the Curators' Catalogue of Portraits and Busts.. The Tellers reported the election of the following gentlemen as members of the Society: Prof. William Morris Davis, of Cambridge, Mass. Russell W. Davenport, of South Bethlehem, Pa. Mr. Frank Miles Day, of Philadelphia. The Society was then adjourned by the presiding officer. Stated Meeting, November 3, 1899. Vice-President SELLERS in the Chair. Present, 13 members. Prof. William A. Lamberton, Mr. Charles E. Dana, and Prof. Marion D. Learned, newly elected members, were presented to the Chair, and took their seats in the Society. Letters were read from Mr. Frank Miles Day, Prof. William Morris Davis and Mr. John Cadwalader, accepting membership. From the President, announcing the appointment of Prof. Albert H. Smyth to prepare an obituary notice of the late Dr. Daniel G. Brinton, and from Prof. Smyth, accepting the appointment. On motion of Dr. Morris, it was ordered that a Committee be appointed to arrange for a meeting in memory of the late Dr. Daniel G. Brinton, and that invitations be authorized to be extended to the learned societies to which Dr. Brinton belonged to participate in the same. The Chair subsequently appointed as the Committee Dr. Morris, Prof. Smyth, Mr. Culin, Mr. Burk and Dr. W. H. Greene. The list of donations to the Library was laid upon the table, and thanks were ordered therefor. The decease of the following members was announced: Prof. Heinrich Kiepert, of Berlin, on April 21, 1899. Prof. George Rawlinson, Canon of Canterbury. Prof. George F. Barker presented a report as the delegate of the Society to the Stokes Jubilee at Cambridge, Eng. Dr. Cleemann moved that translations of papers that have been published already in another language are not eligible for the Transactions or Proceedings. Adopted. The Society was then adjourned by the presiding officer. Stated Meeting, November 17, 1899. Vice-President SELLERS, in the Chair. Present, 16 members. Mr. L. B. Stillwell, a newly elected member, was presented to the Chair and took his seat in the Society. A letter was read from Vice-President Sellers, naming as the Brinton Memorial Committee, Messrs. J. C. Morris, A. H. Smyth, S. Culin, J. Y. Burk and W. H. Greene. The Librarian presented a list of the donations to the Library. The deaths of Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks, K. C.B., and Dr. Walter J. Hoffman, members of the Society, were announced. Dr. C. N. Peirce read an obituary notice of Dr. W. G. A. Bonwill. A communication from J. Dyneley Prince, Ph.D., entitled, "Some Passamaquoddy Witchcraft Tales," was presented. Also a communication by John Van Denburgh, of Baltimore, Md., entitled "Notes on Some Birds of Santa Clara County, California." The Society was then adjourned by the presiding officer. NOTES ON SOME BIRDS OF SANTA CLARA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA. BY JOHN VAN DENBUrgh. (Read November 17, 1899.) This paper has been prepared in response to several requests for such notes as I might have on the land birds of Santa Clara county. It is based upon more or less casual observations extending over a period of fourteen years, and makes no pretense to completeness in any way. Santa Clara county is slightly greater in extent than Rhode Island. Roughly, it may be described as a great valley lying between two mountain ranges. The eastern range rises, in Mount Hamilton, to a height of nearly 4450 feet. The western range is considerably lower. The floor of the valley is made up of the southern marshes of San Francisco bay, parklike expanses of open oak groves, orchards, vineyards and great grain fields. The western mountains, where not already under cultivation, are clothed in chaparral throughout their lower levels, while a fringe of redwoods stands in outline against the sky. It is at two points in this western range-Los Gatos and Palo Alto-that nearly all my observations have been made. Doubtless many additional species occur in the valley and in the eastern mountains, and it is my hope that other observers will soon complete the list. Lophortyx californicus. California Quail. Quail are resident in all parts of the county. During March and early April their calls may be heard almost incessantly, for this is the season of courtship, and even the most bashful of the debutantes does not hesitate to reply to the amorous notes of her lovers. At such times the males seem almost devoid of fear, and, if a female be caged, will strut boldly up to her prison door, even though an observer be openly stationed a few feet away. Rival suitors often engage in fierce conflicts, for what is to the female the tenderest of love calls is to another male the sharpest of challenges. A few coveys often remain as such through the year, but the middle of April finds most of the quail roaming in pairs. Even at this |