The Annals 



of 



Scottish Natural History 



NO. 6 3 ] 1907 [JULY 



IN MEMORIAM: ALFRED NEWTON. 



WITH PORTRAIT. 



THE death of such a distinguished naturalist as Professor 

 Newton demands some notice in the pages of this magazine. 

 With him ornithological science has lost its brightest orna- 

 ment, and the zoological editors of " The Annals " a very 

 old and greatly revered friend. 



Alfred Newton, the fifth son of William Newton, Esq., 

 of Elveden Hall, Suffolk, was born on the iith of June 

 1829, and died at Cambridge on the 7th of June 1907, and 

 had thus nearly completed the seventy-eighth year of his age. 



Professor Newton was perhaps best known to British 

 naturalists as the editor of volumes i. and ii. of " Yarrell's 

 Birds " : masterly productions, through which the literature 

 of the ornithology of our islands was raised to its highest 

 level, both in its scholarly and scientific aspects. His greatest 

 work, however, was " The Dictionary of Birds," a volume 

 which is a perfect mine of ornithological wealth, culled 

 from marvellously wide sources, and illumined by original 

 contributions of the greatest value. Another important 

 work, and the last completed, was the " Ootheca Wolleyana," 

 recently noticed in these pages. The papers which stand to 

 his credit are many and important, and it is impossible to 

 enumerate them here. 



63 B 



