Vol 'i9i^ XI1 ] Notes and News. 539 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



Graf Hans von Berlepsch, an Honorary Fellow of the American 

 Ornithologists' Union, died on February 27, 1915, in the sixty-fourth year 

 of his age. He was one of the original Corresponding Members of the 

 A. O. U. and was elected to Honorary Fellowship in 1890. He was one 

 of the leading authorities on the birds of South America and had published 

 many papers on the subject. Of late years he made a special study of 

 attracting wild birds and had devised various styles of bird nesting boxes 

 as well as methods of pruning trees and shrubs to encourage nest building 

 in them. His estates in Germany where his ideas were put to practical tests 

 were veritable bird sanctuaries. His loss will be widely felt in ornithologi- 

 cal circles both among the museum systematists and the great host who 

 are interested in the preservation of wild bird life. 



Dr. Otto Herman, a Corresponding Fellow of the American Ornitholo- 

 gists' Union, died in Budapest, Hungary, on December 27, 1914, in the 

 eightieth year of his age. He was born in Brezn6banya, June 27, 1835. 

 His parents came from Zips, his father, Karl Herman, being a lying in 

 surgeon in moderate circumstances. The surroundings of his home were 

 extremely favorable to the development of the young, growing naturalist 

 and all nature soon strongly impressed him. His father was a classmate of 

 Johann Salamon Petenyi, at that time the leader in Hungarian ornithology, 

 and encouraged his son in all his juvenile expeditions, during which period 

 young Herman made a collection of birds, preparing all the skins himself. 



There being little money in natural science, his father became much 

 concerned as to what to do with him as the time approached for his self- 

 support, and finally sent him to the Polytechnic school in Vienna where he 

 graduated and took a position as a factory draughtsman. Uncongenial 

 as the life was he determined to win, and displayed the iron will, quick 

 perception and faith in himself which were ever characteristic of him. 

 Misfortunes, however, overtook him; first his father's death, then the dis- 

 covery that he had been out of his country without permission, for which the 

 government compelled him to serve twelve years in the army. Think of a 

 nature like his being subjected to the iron ruling of military discipline! 



It was but another instance of the square peg in the round hole, or, as a 

 distinguished American ornithologist once put it: "To make a square peg 

 fit in a round hole is impossible. One of two things must happen. Either 

 the peg wears round, and sinks into the hole at last, or, if it stays square, 

 works loose^and is gone. Nothing but friction in either case." x 



After the war between Poland and Russia in 1863, when Herman had 

 volunteered as a soldier in the army of the former, he made application for the 

 vacant position of taxidermist in the Museum of Siebenbtirgen. Having 



> The Medical Record, September 29, 1883, p. 343. 



