4<J8 Obituary. 



Humming-Birds met with, but both were " common/' 

 Cathartes aura was found " everywhere." Dippers (Cinclus 

 mexicanus) were " very common." Of Chamcea fasciata a 

 few were met with " in the hush." 



88. Van Oort on the Osteology of the Tail in Birds. 



Beitrag zur Oateologie der Vogelschwanzes. Inaugural-Dissertation 

 dee philosophischen Fakultal des Dniversitat Bern zur Erlangung der 

 Doctorwiirde. By Dr. Eduard Daniel Van Oort in Leiden. 143 pp., 

 5 pis. j 



We are glad to have an opportunity of noticing this 

 careful paper by Dr. van Oort on the Osteology of the Tail 

 in Birds, though it is impossible in our restricted space to do 

 justice to the details, which must be left for study to the 

 individual reader. Not only docs the author give us the 

 results of his own work upon the rich collection of skeletons 

 in the Leyden Museum, but he also furnishes us with a 

 compendium of the researches of former writers on the 

 subject, and adds a discussion upon the relationships of the 

 various families as shown by the formation of the tail, drawing 

 conclusions favourable to the more modern Classifications. 

 Special sections are devoted to I'ossil and to recent birds, 

 llatitc and Carinate, to the embryo of certain species, to the 

 rectrices, and so forth; while a table is given of the number 

 of vertebrae in each family and in representative species. 

 Moreover, we observe throughout statements of the number 

 of rectrices, which we have often endeavoured (and failed) 

 to find elsewhere in particular cases. 



XXXII.— Obituary. 



Enw \kd Cavendish Taylor and Leonard Howard Irby. 



Edward Cavendish Taylor, one of the original members 

 of the British Ornithologists' Union, was born on the 20th 

 of January, 1831, the third and youngest son of Frederic 

 Farmer Taylor, of Chyknell in the county of Salop, by his 



