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OBITUARY. 



ABRAHAM DEE BARTLETT. 

 Born 1812. Died May 7, 1897. 



n^HE Zoological Society has sustained a severe loss by the death of 

 J_ the superintendent of the Gardens, aged 85. Mr. Bartlett had 

 occupied that position since so long ago as 1 859, having before that 

 been head of the Natural History Department at the Crystal Palace. 

 Few men had so great a practical acquaintance with animals as had 

 Mr. Bartlett, and the Council of the Society will find it by no means 

 an easy matter to appoint his successor. His contributions to 

 zoological literature are mainly to be found in the Proceedings of the 

 Zoological Society, and the most important of these deal with birds. 

 He was the first to note the presence of powder down patches in that 

 singular bird the Kagu {Rhinochetus), of New Caledonia, and also in 

 the African Balaeniceps. He drew attention to certain struthious 

 characters exhibited in the incubation and by the young of the 

 tinamous — facts which tended to support the current views as to the 

 low position of these birds among the Carinatae. In the moulting of 

 the penguin, Mr. Bartlett emphasised the interesting fact that the 

 feathers of the wing, so scale-like in appearance, are shed almost in 

 one piece as is the skin of a snake. He commented also upon the 

 singular sac-like structures thrown up by the hornbill, and made a 

 number of other contributions to our knowledge of the habits and struc- 

 ture of birds. The main part of his work, however, lay in the practical 

 management of the Regent's Park Gardens, and the excellent 

 condition of those gardens was in no small degree due to his industry 

 and capabilities. 



Sir Edward Newton, K.C.M.G., who died at Lowestoft on 

 April 25, aged 64, availed himself of his opportunities as Colonial 

 Secretary of Mauritius, as member of a mission to Madagascar, and 

 as Lieutenant-Governor of Jamaica, to increase our knowledge of the 

 natural history, and especially the ornithology of those islands. He 

 was one of the founders of the British Ornithologists' Union, and was 

 joint author of various scientific papers with Dr. A. Giinther, Dr. H. 

 Gadow, and his elder brother, Professor Alfred Newton. 



There are also announced the deaths of : — Max Sintenis, Entomologist, 

 at Kupferberg, Silesia ; Fillippo Tognini, Curator of the Botanical Institute at 

 Pavia University ; on December i, the explorer Ludwig Karnbach, aged 34 ; 

 in January, at Libreville, M. Thollon, a botanist and chief of exploration on the 

 French Congo ; on January 17, Professor Augusto Palumbo, at Castelvetrano, 

 Sicily, aged 54; J. B. Bakla, head of the Natural History Museum at Nizza; 

 Professor Berthaud, of Lille, geologist ; G. GERCKE.of Hamburg, dipterologist. 



We are compelled by the exceptional pressure on our space in this number to 

 Jiold over a large number of names. 



