238 Letters, Announcements, 5fc. 



Obituary. Dr. Ruppell, Prof. Severtzoff, Mr. E. TV. White, 

 and Mr. E. C. Rye. — The veteran naturalist Dr. E, Ruppell, 

 whose name is well known to all students of the Ethiopian 

 fauna^ died at Frankfort on December 10th, 1884, aged 90 

 years. In our next number we hope to be able to give 

 some details of his career and work from the pen of one 

 who is preeminently acquainted with them. 



Nikolai Alexsyewich Severtzoff was born in 1827 and 

 educated at the University of Moscow. At the age of 

 eighteen he became acquainted with the well-known exjjlorer 

 G. S. Karelin, and from that time, according to his own 

 account, the scientific investigation of Central Asia became 

 the object of his life. In 1857 the opportunity of realizing 

 his dream was afforded him by a mission from the Academy 

 of Sciences to proceed to the Syr-Darya ''to investigate tlie 

 continental climate, and explain the geographical distribution 

 of animals by physical conditions of terrestrial surface.^' On 

 this expedition, in which he was taken prisoner by the Turko- 

 mans, receiving many sabre-wounds, the hideous cicatrices 

 of which those who knew him will well remember^ he acquired 

 an intimate knowledge of the Ural Steppes and the Aralo- 

 Caspian basin. While occuj)ied in the working-out of the 

 rich materials thus obtained, and Avhen on the point of accept- 

 ing a professorship, the chance came, and was immediately 

 grasped, of visiting Tashkend in connection with Genei'al 

 TchernaieFs campaign of 1864. The result was seen in the 

 important work published in Moscow in 1873, the title of 

 which may be rendered as " The Vertical and Horizontal 

 Distribution of Animals in Turkestan," of which an abbrevi- 

 ated translation, edited by Mr. H. E. Dresser, appeared in 

 ' The Ibis ' for 1875-76. Severtzoff also contributed some 

 notes on Central Asiatic birds to ' The Ibis ' and to ' Stray 

 Feathers 'for 1875, as well as to the 'Journal fiir Ornithologie.' 

 In 1880 he commenced a valuable treatise on the lines of bird- 

 migration in Central Asia, particularly in the Pamir disti'ict, 

 giving the results of his experiences on the Russian scientific 

 expeditions from 1877-79, and embodying the observations 



