and his Ornithological Work. 725 



accepted a commission in the liifie Brigade in which he 

 had already served as ;i Militiaman, but his heart was not 

 really in soldiering, except in so far as it enabled liim to visit 

 unknown lands in search of birds. In 1902, when he had 

 completed the description of his Gold Coast collections, we 

 find him organising an expedition to visit the little-known 

 island of Fernando Po. This was-one of his most successful 

 undertakings, for he ascended the Pico Santa Isabel, which 

 attains an altitude of 10,800 feet, and discovered a large 

 number of new species, including the remarkable long-tailed 

 Tree-Warbler (Urolais marice) representing a new genus 

 and species. With his Portuguese collector Jose Lopez, 

 who had developed the most remarkable talent both for 

 shooting and preserving small birds, he arrived at Fernando 

 Po on 27th October, 1902, and remained on the island till 

 the middle of December, when his leave being nearly up he 

 was obliged to return to England. Describing the ornitho- 

 logical results of this Expedition he writes' — "The work 

 of the whole expedition resulted in a series of nearly 

 500 specimens representing 3 new genera and 103 species, 

 of which 35 have proved to be new to science. I owe this 

 remarkable success to having traversed the high ground, 

 my predecessors having confined their attentions to the 

 lowlands. The wealth of bird-life on the island is indeed 

 wonderful, and proportionally larger than in the forest- 

 region of the adjoining West Coast." A full account with 

 coloured figures of some of his more remarkable dis- 

 coveries on this occasion will be found in ( The Ibis,' 1903, 

 pp. 330-403. 



Boyd Alexander's next scheme was of a much more 

 ambitious character than any of his previous undertakings, 

 and is now famous all over the world as the Alexander-Gosling 

 Expedition, which crossed Africa from the Niger to the Nile 

 and explored the countries bordering Lake Chad. The whole 

 journey occupied thi'ee years, from 1904 to 1907, and resulted 

 in the tragic deaths of both his companions, his brother Capt. 

 Claud Alexander (Scots Guards) and Capt. G. B. Gosling 

 (Rifle Brigade). Undaunted by these terrible misfortunes 



