Il8 Notes and News. ff"'' 



LJan. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



Dr. John Anderson, a Corresponding Member of the American 

 Ornithologists' Union, died at Buxton, England, August 15, 1900, at the 

 age of 66 years. He was born in Edinburgh in 1833, and was graduated 

 a Doctor of Medicine from the Edinburgh University in 1861. In 1864 

 he went to India, and the following year was made Superintendent of the 

 Calcutta Museum. A few years later he was also appointed to the Chair 

 of Comparative Anatomy in the Medical College of that city, and Calcutta 

 became his principal headquarters during his long residence in India. 

 He made, however, several important scientific expeditions to remote 

 parts of India, the results being published in part in ' Zoological Results 

 of the Two Expeditions to Western Yunnan ' (2 vols., 4to, 1878). 



" In 1887, after twenty-three years' service under the Indian Govern- 

 ment, Dr. Anderson returned home, and settled in South Kensington, 

 where he devoted himself entirely to zoological work, and was a well- 

 known attendant at the Royal, Geographical, Linnean, and Zoological 

 Societies. Of the last named — he was for many years one of the Vice- 

 Presidents. Being in delicate health. Dr. Anderson usually passed his 

 winters in Egypt, and devoted his energies mainly to the exploration of 

 the fauna of that country. In 1898, he published a splendid volume on 

 its Herpetology, and up to the time of his death was busily engaged on 



a corresponding work on Egyptian Mammals Besides the works 



above mentioned, he published in 1876, an excellent essay on the oste- 

 ology and pterylosis of the Spoon-billed Sandpiper {Eurytiorhynchus 

 pygmceiis)y (Ji>is, ]an. 1901, p. 160.) 



The Abbe Armand David, a Corresponding Member of the American 

 Ornithologists' Union, died in Paris November 10, 1900, at the age of 74 

 years. Born at Espalette in the Province of the Basses Pyrenees in 1826, 

 and educated for the priesthood, in 1S62 he was placed in charge of the Laz- 

 arist missionary school in Pekin, China. Shortly after his arrival he 

 began transmitting valuable natural history collections to the Paris Mu- 

 seum, and later made a number of successful expeditions into the interior 

 of China, under the patronage of the authorities of the Paris Museum. 

 His last expedition was made in 1872, to Shansi and the Hoang-ho, which, 

 with previous exposure and hardships, so impaired his health that he was 

 obliged to return to France, and where, with partially restored health, he 

 passed his remaining years. From 1870 to 1875 he published a number 

 of important papers on the birds of China, based on his collections and 

 field work. In 1877, in collaboration with M. E. Oustalet, he published 

 his ' Les Oiseaux de la Chine,' the text and atlas making two octavo vol- 

 umes, and forming a work of great value. Although primarily an orni- 

 thologist, he made important collections in other departments of zoology. 



