36 About Members. [J"]\ 



Union. They also wish to place on record your devotion to the 

 science of ornithology, and to the duties of the honorary co- 

 editing of T/ie Emu journal, knowing full well what sacrifices you 

 have perforce made, owing to the quantity of work devolving 

 upon you, and the inroads this work has made into your social 

 and domestic affairs by occupying most of your spare time for 

 the last five years. Believe me, the Council and members of the 

 Union are cognisant of the high standard of literary, scientific, 

 and artistic excellence which has characterised your efforts, and 

 which are reflected in The Emu, the first five volumes of which 

 stand as a permanent testimony of your ability. The members 

 of the Union and ornithological science at large are under a 

 deep debt of gratitude to you for your faithful and able editing. 

 The contemplation, in after life, of your strenuous labours for 

 the benefit of rising ornithologists, and the advancement of 

 science generally, will bring its own reward mentally. The 

 Council avow, however, that you may still be of great service to 

 the Union, and they desire to have the further advantage of 

 your mature experience and ripe judgment, and would therefore 

 ask you to accept the position of an honorary advisory editor, 

 which post, though onerous, will be devoid of the drudgery and 

 consequent loss of time pertaining to the work of editing The 

 Emu." 



Obituary Notice. 



The news of the death, in the 39th year of his age, of Dr. Paul 

 Leverkiihn, Private Secretary to H.R.H. Prince F'erdinand of 

 Bulgaria, and Director of the Royal Scientific Institute and 

 Library at Sofia, will be received with great regret b)' all 

 ornithologists who knew of his work. He was born in 

 Hanover in 1867, and died of pneumonia, supervening on 

 typhoid, at Sofia, on 5th December last. He was a man of 

 varied abilities — scientist, diplomat, litterateur, and musician. 

 He had been in the service of the Prince of Bulgaria from 1892, 

 and at the time of his death was at work on the new Museum 

 of Natural History at Sofia, which was intended to be opened 

 next year. His ornithological writings are marked by 

 punctilious care in reference to authorities and general arrange- 

 ment. Probably the best known is the treatise entitled 

 " Fremde Eier im Nest" ("Another Bird's Eggs in the Nest"), 

 which appeared in 1891, when the author was but four-and- 

 twenty ; it is an exhaustive summary of the records of results 

 occurring when one bird's eggs have in some way or other been 

 placed in another bird's nest. It contains, moreover, in a 

 lengthy footnote (pp. 36-45) a complete list of everything that 

 had been written to the date of its publication on the mound- 

 building birds {Megapodidis), which will be found most valuable 



