vet: ae | Notes and News. 113 
NEVER before has death taken such heavy toll from the active member- 
ship of the American Ornithologists’ Union, as in the year 1916. The loss 
of four of the Fellows, Dr. D.G. Elliot,! Prof. Wells W.Cooke,! Prof. F. E. L. 
Beal, and Dr. E. A. Mearns, two of whom were founders, has now reduced 
the list of surviving founders of the Union to less than half its original 
number. Dr. Edgar Alexander Mearns died at the Walter Reed Hospital, 
in Washington, D. C., on November 1, 1916, only a few days before the last 
annual meeting. 
The son of Alexander and Nancy R. (Carswell) Mearns, he was born 
at Highland Falls, N. Y., September 11, 1856. He graduated from the 
College of Physicians and Surgeons (Columbia University) in 1881, and in 
the same year married Miss Ella Wittich of Circleville, Ohio. On December 
3, 1883, he received an appointment as first lieutenant and assistant surgeon 
in the medical corps of the U. S. Army and remained 25 years in active 
military service. He was promoted to the rank of captain and assistant 
surgeon December 3, 1888, major and brigade surgeon of volunteers, 
June 4, 1898, major and surgeon in the regular army February 2, 1901, and 
was retired with the rank of lieutenant colonel on January 1,1909. He was 
one of the most eminent of that group of army surgeons which includes 
Cooper, Coues, Hammond, Henry, Merrill, Suckley and others, who in 
addition to their regular military duties, found time to do field work in 
natural history and thus were able to add much to our knowledge of the 
zoology of the west. 
Dr. Mearn’s first ornithological papers, containing notes on rare birds in 
the Hudson Valley near West Point, appeared in the ‘ Bulletin of the Nuttall 
Ornithological Club in 1878, and his ‘ List of Birds of the Hudson Highlands’ 
which still remains one of the most complete papers on the birds of this part 
of New York, was published in 1879-81. While serving in the army 
his most notable work was done at Fort Verde, Ariz., in the eighties, on the 
Mexican Boundary Commission in 1892-94, and during his service in the 
Philippines in 1903-04 and 1905-07. Reports have been published on only 
a part of his Boundary collections. His ‘Mammals of the Mexican Bound- 
ary’ contains accounts of the trees, big game and rodents but unfortunately 
this report was never completed and no comprehensive account of the 
birds has thus far been published. Several papers on his Philippine birds 
have appeared from time to time. 
~ In 1909 Dr. Mearns accompanied Col. Theodore Roosevelt on the Smith- 
sonian African Expedition to British East Africa and in 1911-12 he visited 
Abyssinia as field naturalist of the Childs-Frick African Expedition. 
Since his return from this expedition he has been busily engaged in working 
up his collections. He has published a number of papers on the most 
interesting novelties among the birds, and at the time of his death was 
preparing a comprehensive report on the birds obtained in Africa. 
Dr. Mearns was an enthusiastic all-round naturalist. While interested 
1See Vol. XXXIII, pp. 230-231 and 354-355, 1916, and memorial address, antea pp. 
1-10. 
