X MEMOIE. 



was still busy with the Waders, and in the early part of the year 

 he made a voyage to Natal, principally for the purpose of deter- 

 mining whether Limicoline birds moulted their primaries in spring 

 as well as in autumn, a fact which he incontestably proved. 

 These and many other points of interest are discussed in his 

 paper, "Notes on the Birds of Natal and adjoining parts of 

 Africa" ("Ibis," 1887, pp. 336—351). In the same volume 

 there is another paper on the number of the secondary quills in 

 birds, and in this year he also commenced his first account of 

 the Birds of the Loochoo Islands. 



At the end of 1887 appeared his great work on the "Geograph- 

 ical Distribution of the Charadriidce, or Plovers, Sandpipers and 

 Snipes," but, curiously enough, there is no date of publication on 

 the title page. On the cloth cover of the book is given the date 

 "1888"; but my own copy contains a letter of presentation 

 dated " Christmas, 1887," so that there were certainly some 

 bound copies in existence before the end of the year 1887. 



On the above-mentioned work Seebohm spent a great deal 

 of labour, and a considerable sum of money. Nearly every 

 point that could be utilised for the discrimination of species is 

 figured, and woodcuts are on nearly every page. Having myself 

 just finished the 24th volume of the " Catalogue of Birds," dealing 

 with the LimicolcB, I can state with authority that Seebohm's 

 work on the Charadriidce was of the greatest assistance to me 

 throughout. The migration of birds always interested him 

 intensely, and as the Charadriidce afford excellent instances of 

 migration in the class Aves, he dealt fully with the subject in 

 his work, believing that the "chief causes of the dispersal of 

 the ancestors of the Charadriidce have probably been two glacial 

 epochs." 



In 1888, besides writing several papers, principally on Palaearctic 

 Ornithology, Seebohm began to work at the osteology of birds, with 

 a view to publish an essay on their classification. He had already 

 got together a large collection of skeletons, and in the " Ibis " for 

 that year he wrote his first paper on the subject, " An attempt to 

 diagnose the Sub-orders of the Great Gallino-Gralline group of 

 Birds, by the aid of osteological characters." In the study of 

 these bones of birds he received much assistance and a mass of 

 information from the late Professor T. Kitchen Parker. 



