1898.] Obituary: — C. Herbert Hurst. 155 



Hurst undertook an investigation of the characters of the well-known 

 fossil bird Archdopteryx, believing the views generally held by zoologists 

 as to 'the functions of its wing bones to be wrong. In connection with 

 the subject, he visited Berlin to examine there one of the two known 

 specimens of the bird. 



May his memor}', as an enthusiastic, painstaking teacher, a sincere 

 friend, long stav with us I 



T.J. 



A SCIENTIFIC GUIDK-BOOK. 



Official Guide to County Down and the IVIourne Mountains ; 



by RoBKRT I^i^ovD Prae;ge;r, B.A., B.K., MR. I. A., President of the 

 Dublin Naturalists' Field Club. (Published by Marcus Ward & Co., 

 Belfast, for the Belfast and County Down Railway Company, 1898. 

 Pp. i.-ix. and 1-232 ; with maps and about 100 illustrations. Price i^.) 



It is not often that an official guide-book is written by a scientific 

 observer; still less often is a railwa3'-guide devoted to making known 

 the by-ways as well as the highways of the district served. Mr. Praeger 

 has probably walked over more of the County of Down than any man of 

 the same age ; and^his intimacy with the solitudes of the Mournes makes 

 it natural that he should be asked to undertake their description for the 

 public. But his observation and research in all the wide region to the 

 north, where cromlechs, and earns, and relics of old keeps, abound, 

 show that he can treat his subject equally from an antiquarian point of 

 view ; while throughout, aided by the generous help of Dr. Joyce, he 

 has kept before us the meaning of the old names — names full of natural 

 suggestion, like Knockinelder, or rich in history, like Downpatrick. 



We are so accustomed to the brief and often disparaging utterances of 

 the guide-book writer, in regard to those who follow a scientific pursuit 

 during their holidays, that it is refreshing to find an author to whom 

 such pursuits seem natural in a natural man. The introduction to the 

 County occupies 27 pages ; and of these, seven are devoted to history, 

 two to archaeology, eight — including several illustrations— to recreative 

 .sports, and seven, far more closely printed, to natural histor}' and 

 geology. The small type used for this purel}' scientific section, instead 

 of proving a defect, enables it to be singularly full, and amply supplied 

 with references. No one but a careful watcher of the Proceedings of the 

 Belfast Naturalists' Field Club, and, indeed^ no one but an original 

 observer, would have given us the records of marine and fresh-water 

 mollusca on p. 24, or would have suggested to the excursionist a search 

 for Otwrrhynchzis auropnnctatiis (p. 25), In the botanical passages, again, we 

 find some characteristic hints as to the connexion of plant-distribution 

 and geology. 



