11 A Obituary Notice. [^J 



Emu 

 Oct. 



indispensable to every working ornithologist ; vols. i. and ii. of 

 Yarrell's ' British Birds ' ; his ' Ootheca Wolleyana,' a catalogue 

 of the celebrated collection of eggs originally formed by the late 

 John VVolley, and completed by Professor Newton himself, 

 which, though commenced as long ago as 1866, was only com- 

 pleted shortly before his death ; and his various papers on the 

 Great Auk or Garefowl. 



"As one of the founders — probably the chief of the small band 

 of ornithologists who founded, nearly fifty years ago, the British 

 Ornithologists' Union — Professor Newton and his coadjutors 

 gave an impetus to the study of ornithology which has had most 

 gratifying and lasting results. 



" A severe though a very fair critic, and a hard hitter when he 

 deemed it necessary to administer salutary correction, Professor 

 Newton was a firm friend, most courteous, genial, and pleasant 

 in manner in personal intercourse, and especially kind and 

 helpful towards young ornithologists ; therefore he was greatly 

 loved and revered by all who came in personal contact with him. 

 It was a constant custom with him to be at home on Sunday 

 evenings to young students of zoology, and all who have taken 

 part in these pleasant reunions will know how helpful he 

 invariably was to any young man who was working at any 

 branch of zoology. In this, as in his influence on the study of 

 ornithology, he will be sorely missed, and there is no one who 

 can take his place. 



"Although permanently lame, owing to an accident in early 

 childhood, he did good work as an out-door naturalist, and 

 travelled considerably, visiting Norway, Lapland, Spitzbergen, 

 Iceland, the West Indies, and North America, making excellent 

 use, as his writings show, of his opportunities to study the habits 

 of birds in their native haunts. 



" A keen oologist. Professor Newton amassed a very good 

 collection of eggs, almost entirely of Palaearctic species, and of 

 some, chiefly northern, a very large series — and this valuable 

 collection he has bequeathed to the Cambridge University 

 Museum. His chief hobby was, however, his library of ornitho- 

 logical and zoological books, and whenever a rare ornithological 

 work was in the market he would use every endeavour to secure 

 it, usually with success. Hence this library, which he has also 

 bequeathed to the Cambridge University, is extremely rich, and 

 contains several of the rarest and most valuable ornithological 

 and oological works. 



" Though very broad-minded, Professor Newton was somewhat 

 conservative, and to the last he was strongly averse to the 

 extreme subdivision of species, often on the very slightest 

 grounds, now so prevalent amongst some ornithologists of the 

 present day, as also to the use (or, we may almost say, abuse) of 

 trinomial appellations, he being essentially a binomialist. 



