154 Notes and News. [JjJ 



and a member of the United States Biological Survey since 1915. He was 

 born at Arena, Iowa County, Wisconsin, March 12, 1893, and was educated 

 in the public schools of that state, graduating from the High School at 

 Baraboo. While in Washington, D. C, in order further to fit himself for 

 his official work, he took a special course in zoology at George Washington 

 University. He was self-taught in natural history, however, and before 

 coming to the Biological Survey creditably passed two of its examinations, 

 one of which required special knowledge of mammals, the other of birds. 

 In the Biological Survey, he was an assistant in economic ornithology, and 

 was especially trained to investigate the food habits of wild ducks. He 

 made good progress in tins work and left with the Survey, ready for publi- 

 cation, three manuscripts treating the food habits respectively of the three 

 species of Teals, of .the Gadwall and Widgeon, and of the Pintail and Wood- 

 duck. In the summer of 1917 Mabbott helped to make a survey of the 

 resources in food for wild fowl of the lakes of North Dakota. He served 

 in the National Guard of the District of Columbia in 1916 when trouble 

 with Mexico threatened, and was honorably discharged. He enlisted for 

 service in the present war in February 1918, as soon as he could complete 

 reports on the North Dakota work and on the groups of wild ducks studied. 

 He received ten weeks' training at Paris Island, South Carolina, and was sent 

 at once to France. He had a rifle blown from his hand by a bursting shell, 

 received hospital treatment for shell shock and had only recently recovered 

 and resumed his place in the ranks at the time he was killed. His last 

 words exhorted his comrades to hold the ground gained. Mabbott enlisted 

 in the Marines to get quick action and he got it, and he will ever be num- 

 bered among the heroic band that stopped the German drive on Paris. In 

 his office work Mabbott showed tireless application and he had become very 

 efficient in his special line. Out of doors he was a splendid companion with 

 a keen eye and ear for nature's wonders. While of an independent nature 

 and original turn of mind, in character he was a most likable, straightfor- 

 ward and wholesome boy. To the writer of these lines he was not only an 

 irreplaceable assistant and successor in an especially valued line of work, 

 but a sincere and manly young friend whose loss leaves a definite void. — 

 W. L. M. 



Prof. David Ernest Lantz, Assistant Biologist in the Biological 

 Survey since 1904, and an Associate of the American Ornithologists' Union 

 since 1885, died of pneumonia at his home in Washington, D. C, Oct. 7, 

 1918, after an illness of only a week. He was born at Thompsontown, 

 Pa., Mar. 1, 1855, and at the time of his death was in his 64th year. 



After graduating at the State Normal School at Bloomsburg, Pa., 

 Prof. Lantz became principal of schools at Mifflintown, Pa., a position 

 which he occupied two years. In 1878 he moved to Kansas where during 

 a residence of a quarter of a century he became widely known in educational 

 and scientific circles. He served as superintendent of schools at Man- 

 hattan, professor of mathematics in the State Agricultural College for 



