i62 The Irish Naturalist. Oct.-Nov., 



OBITUARY. 



ALICE SCHARFF. 



With deep regret we announce to our readers the death of Mrs. R. 

 F. Scharff, which took place on August 15th, after a very short illness. 

 The younger daughter of the late L. O. Hutton, she was married to Dr. 

 Scharff in 1889, and devoted herself zealously to helping his zoological 

 studies both as collector and writer. She shared particularly his keen 

 interest in the Irish Naturalist, and rendered no small service to the 

 Magazine by compiling the twenty-five years' autho-rindex that formed 

 the concluding number of the volume for 1916. 



ARTHUR B. E. H1LLA5. 



The scientific institutions of Ireland have suffered yet a further loss 

 in the death of A. B. E. Hillis, Junior Inspector of Fisheries, who received 

 a commission in the Gordon Highlanders early in the war, and had risen 

 to the rank of Captain. He proved himself an exceptionally capable 

 officer : "a splendid soldier keenly interested in the welfare of his men," 

 was the testimony of his colonel. He was reported " wounded and 

 missing " on the western front in April, 1917, but not till the spring of 

 this year was it certified that he had given his life. Born in Co. Sligo 

 in 1876, Hillas was educated at St. Columba's, the High School, and 

 Trinity College, where he took a Senior Moderatorship in 189S. Two 

 years later he joined the scientific staff of the Irish Fisheries Office, where, 

 imtil the outbreak of the war in 191 4, he took an active part in the 

 observational and experimental work on the life-history and migration 

 of food-fishes, devising a new method of marking Salmon smolts. The 

 results of this work and also a series of Eel-fry records made by him 

 were published in the Scientific Investigations of the Irish Fisheries Office. 



NOTES. 



W. H. Harvey and Charles Darwin. 



Shortly after the publication of the " Origin of Species " Prof. Harvey 

 read before the Dublin University Zoological and Botanical Association 

 (on 17th February, i860) a paper entitled " AJGuess at the Probable Origin 

 of the Human Animal considered by the light of Mr. Darwin's Theory of 

 Natural Selection, and in opposition to Lamarck's notion for a Monkey 

 Parentage," which was subsequently printed for private circulaticn under 

 a slightly emended title. In this he expresses disbelief in the efficacy 

 of natural selection in the production of species, and indeed gently ridi- 

 cules the whole theory, Darwin seemed disappointed that a man of Har- 



