468 Obituary. 



and many of us had tlie pleasure of greeting liirn there, 

 little thinking that it would be for the last time we should 

 meet our friend. 



William Edwin Brooks, formerly well known for his 

 excellent work on the birds of British India, a Member of 

 the British Ornithologists^ Union, and a frequent contributor 

 to this Journal, died at his residence, Mount Forest, Ontario, 

 Canada, on the 18th of January last. Brooks was born in 

 Ireland, near Dublin, on the 30th of June, 1828, but his 

 parents were from Northumberland, and he spent his 

 boyhood in that county. He was a civil engineer by 

 profession, and was engaged for many years in the service 

 of the East Indian Railway Company. From 1868 to 1880, 

 during which period he was mostly resident at Etawah, in 

 the North-west Provinces of India, Brooks devoted all his 

 leisure time to observing and collecting birds, and was one 

 of Mr. Hume^s most valued coadjutoi's, having contributed 

 27 papers to 'Stray Feathers' from 1873 to 1880. At 

 the same time he was sending frequent communications to 

 the ' Proceedings' of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, and to 

 this Journal. In 1881 Brooks retired from the Company's 

 service and emigrated to Canada, where he resided until 

 the time of his decease, mostly in the province of Ontario, 

 though at one time he moved over into British Columbia. 

 One of Brooks's latest communications to the 'Ibis ' was in 

 189-i, and related to the species of Phylloscopus, on which 

 difficult group he was recognized as a special authority. 



Joseph Wolf, " without exception," in the words of 

 Landseer, " the best all-round animal painter that ever 

 lived," died at his rooms in Primrose-Hill Studios on the 

 20th of March last, at the age of 79. Wolf was a German 

 by birth, the eldest son of Anton Wolf, a farmer of Moerz, 

 in Bhenish Prussia. Showing but little taste for his father's 

 pursuits. Wolf, at the age of 16, was apprenticed to a litho- 

 grapher at Coblenz. Here his powers of observation and 



