^°\g^J-] Notes and Notices. 267 



booty of the pot-hunter has been closed. There is an old saying 

 that if there were no receivers there would be no thieves ; and this 

 applies admirably to the game and wild bird (juestion. The other 

 act, the Sullivan law, forbids anyone under 16 possessing any 

 sort of gun, even an air-gun. Also all weapons have to be 

 licensed. These are two admirable laws, and they are expected to 

 work well. The Sullivan law, at any rate, should be the means of 

 saving quite a quantity of human life during the year. — " F. R.," 

 Australasian, 27/1/12. 



Obituary. — It is with great regret that we have to record that 

 Mr. Eugene William Gates died at Edgbaston, Birmingham, on 

 ibth November, igii, at the age of 66. From 1867 to 1899 

 Mr. Gates was in the Public Works Department, India. As an 

 ornithologist, he will be best known for his excellent volumes on 

 the " Birds " in the well-known " Fauna of British India," edited 

 by the late W. T. Blanford. He also wrote " A Handbook to the 

 Birds of British Burmah," edited the second edition of Hume's 

 " Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds," and wrote " A Manual of the 

 Game Birds of India." Mr. Gates was also the author of the first 

 two volumes of the " Catalogue of the Collection of Birds' Eggs 

 in the British Museum," and was joint author with Captain Lavile 

 G. Reid of the third and fourth volumes of that work. Mr. Gates 

 was Fellow of the Zoological Society, and was elected a member of 

 the B.G.U. in 1882. but retired in 1903, and shortly afterwards, 

 owing to ill-health, he ceased to do much active bird-work. — 

 British Birds, vol. v., No. 7 (December, 1911). 



Far North-West Exploration. 



The Kimberley exploration expedition, led by Mr. C. P. Conigrave, 

 F.R.G.S., member of the R.A.O.U., after an absence of twelve 

 months, returned safely to Perth on the 6th March. 



At the Town Hall, on the afternoon of the 8th, a civic reception 

 was given to Mr. Conigrave and his companions, Messrs. L. M. 

 Burns and R. N. Collison. Besides the Mayor (Mr. T. G. xMolloy) 

 and councillors, there were present Bishop Riley, Rev. W. T. Kench, 

 Sir John Forrest, K.(\M.G., Mr. E. Allen, M.L.A., Mr. Conigrave, 

 sen., Mr. F. S. Brockman, and many others. 



The following account of Mr. Conigrave's adventurous journey 

 is abridged from an interview published in the West Australian, 

 8/3/12 :- 



The party made Wyndham their starting point, and there they were 

 joined by two local white men and two aborigines. Before actually 

 commencing the journey which they had set out to take, a couple of months 

 was spent in exploring the country between Wyndham and the South 

 Australian border. There were found large belts of pine forests, the 

 commercial value of which was deemed to be very high. Much of the 

 timber was exceedingly well grown, and fit for the market at once. It was in 

 June that a start was made upon what was called " the big trip." In order to 



