1917-] Obituary. fil3 



^TWl.— Obituary. 



EiMiL August Goeldi. 

 We regret to announce the death of Prof. Goeldi, Foreign 

 Member of the British Ornithologists' Union since 1898, on 

 the 5th of Jnly last at Berne, where lie has lived since he 

 retired from his post of Director of the Goeldi jNInseum 

 at Para in Brazil. 



Born atToggenburg, a little town in the Canton St. Gallen, 

 Switzerland, in 1859, Goeldi was the son of a teaclier of 

 Natural History, and from his earliest yonth was brought 

 in contact with the Swiss zoologists of his time. He was 

 educated at the Gymnasium of Schatfliausen and sub- 

 sequently at the TInivei'sities of Leipzig and Jena in 

 Germany. He graduated at Jeua in 1884. His first work 

 Avas on Schizuneura, an aphid orchard-pest, but he longed 

 for a wider sphere than Europe afibrds and found the call 

 of the tropics too strong to be resisted. He went oU to 

 Brazil, where he obtained an appointment in the National 

 Museum of Rio Janeiro. He came under the notice of the 

 enlightened Emperor of Brazil, Dom Pedro IL, who pro- 

 moted him to several other posts. On tiie proclamation of 

 the Republic in 1889, Goeldi retired into private life and 

 settled in the Organ Mountains near Rio until 1894^ when 

 he was appointed by the Governor of the State of Para to 

 found and organize a Museum at Para City or Belem. This 

 was his opportunity and he made splendid use of it, so 

 much so that on his retirement in 1907 the Museum was 

 riamed the Museum Goeldi^ after him. He also organized 

 a Botanical and Zoological Garden in connection with the 

 Museum, and issued a series of volumes, ' Boletim do 

 Museu Paraense,' afterwards 'Memorias do Museu Goeldi,' 

 in which many important contributions to Brazilian zoology 

 and ethnology were made. In the fourth volume appeared 

 his monograph on the Mosquitoes of Brazil, in which it was 

 first suggested that Stegomyia might be the carrier of the 

 yellow fever blood-parasite — a matter which has been amply 

 proved since. 



