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OBITUARIES. 



Br ERNST HARTEKT, Ph.D. 



HEINRICH KUHN. 



DURING the year 1906 we lost one of onr most esteemed correspondents, the 

 ardent and indefatigable collector Heinrich Kiihn. 

 He was born on February 8th, 1860, in Erlbach, in Saxony, as the son of a 

 " Bergrat " or mining councillor. He was always enthusiastically interested in 

 zoology, and in 1882 he went to the Far East, in the company of Mr. Carl Ribbe, 

 to collect zoological specimens. They visited the Arn Islands, New Guinea, Celebes, 

 especially south and east Celebes, which was at that time very little known; 

 but the most important work perhaps was done on the large island of Banggai or 

 Bangkai. Kiihu's early work was highly appreciated in Europe ; and several 

 butterflies — for example, Pieris kilhni, Hestia kiihni, Jolaus kihkni, Amblypodia 

 kiikni — were named after their discoverer. Mr. J. Ruber described the lepidoptera 

 in volume i. of Iris (Dresden, 1884 — 1888), and in that same volume Mr. Kiihn 

 wrote three articles : 



1. " Excnrsionen im ostindischeu Archipel " (pp.4 — S). 



2. "Instinct oder Ueberlegung ? " (p. 118). 



3. " Zur Kenutniss indischer Lepidoptereularven" (pp. 179 — 183). 

 Probably Kiihn did not reap the full benefit of his work, as he did not retnrn 



to Europe, but remained in the East, while the collections which Ribbe and Kiihn 

 made were put on the market by Ribbe senior. 



For a number of years nothing was heard of our friend as a naturalist, as 

 he remained at Toeal, on the Key Islands, where he erected a sawmill and planted 

 cocoaunts for commercial purposes ; but this occupation seems not to have been 

 too lucrative, and did not fully satisfy Kiihn's tastes ; he therefore offered his 

 services as a natural history collector to Mr. Rothschild about ten years ago, 

 and we have received from him the zoological results of many trips to little-known 

 islands, together with valuable material from the Key Islands, where he resided. 



Mr. Kiihn visited the Arn Islands, and collected there most of the birds known 

 from that group ; he collected for the Tring Museum on the Timorlaut or Tenimber 

 Islands, on Banda, and on Dammer. He then explored systematically the long 

 chain of islands known as the South-East Islands, which stretches from the Key 

 Islands to Ceram, as well as the so-called South- West Islands, betweeu Wetter 

 and Tenimber. Several of the latter had never been visited by a European 

 collector before, and are inhabited by fearless, lawless, and hostile tribes. The 

 most interesting expedition, however, was probably that to the Tukang Besi 

 Islands, south of Celebes, which had never been touched by a collector before, 

 though the collections were less rich than we had expected, owing to these islands 

 being very thickly populated and under cultivation. The birdskins and lepidoptera 

 collected by Heinrich Kiihn were frequently discussed, and formed important 

 additions to our series. His name will often be found, among others, in the 

 monograph of Ckaraxes and in the monograph of the Sphingidae by Drs. Walter 

 Rothschild and Jordan, and in the "Notes on Papuan Birds," by Dr. Rothschild 



