194 Notes and News. ei 
WILLIAM Epwin Brooks, a Corresponding Member of the American 
Ornithologists’ Union, died at his residence, Mount Forest, Ontario, on 
January 18, 1899, at the age of 70 years. He was the son of W. A. Brooks, 
of Newcastle-on-Tyne, England, and was born in 1829. His father was 
chief engineer on the Tyne docks and harbor works, where for several 
years young Brooks was employed as his father’s assistant. In 1856 he 
went to India as a civil engineer on the East India Railway, and was one 
of the original constructors of that line. In 1881 he came to Canada, and 
settled at Milton, Ontario, but later moved to Chilliwack, British Colum- 
bia, returning again to Ontario in 1891, and resided during his later 
years at Mount Forest. 
His ornithological work related almost entirely to India birds; he 
was an active co-worker with Mr. Allan Hume, and from 1873 to 1880 
published many papers on India birds in ‘Stray Feathers,’ in the ‘ Jour- 
nal’ of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, and in ‘ The Ibis.” He gave particular 
attention to the smaller Warblers, and was a special authority on the 
genus Phylloscopus, of which he discovered several new species. One of his 
latest contributions to ‘The Ibis’ related to this group. He also devoted 
considerable attention to the Raptores, closely studying the change of 
plumage in the smaller Eagles, which he kept alive for this purpose. 
His large collection of Indian birds is now in the British Museum. He 
was elected a Corresponding Member of the A. O. U. in 1886, and became 
a member of the B. O. U. in 1892. His son, Allan Brooks, is a well-known 
Canadian ornithologist. 
Francis C. BRowneE, an Associate Member of the American Orni- 
thologists’ Union, and an occasional contributor to the ‘Nuttall Bulletin,’ 
‘The Auk,’ and to ‘ Forest and Stream,’ died at his home in Framingham, 
Mass., Jan. 9, 1900, aged 70. 
In speaking of Mr. Browne we find little that he himself would think 
worth recording about his life; few of those things which deserve to be 
called events. He was a modest, shy, reserved man, who loved nature 
and the observation of nature, and shunned public notice as if it were 
infection. After his graduation at Harvard College (1851) he never 
attended the annual class meetings and, it is believed, never cared to 
revisit Cambridge. He never sought amusement outside of his own 
home, excepting only his annual visit to Clark’s Island in Plymouth, for 
duck-shooting at the season of the autumnal migration. Although of 
most amiable and kindly temper and holding liberal views, he cared little 
for society or to make intimate acquaintance among his towns-people. 
He seldom went to Concord where he had passed his youth and was 
fitted for college, and where he had many attached friends and relatives. 
His chief delight and the occupation of his leisure hours was to arrange 
and catalogue his possessions in bird skins, shells and coins, upon which 
he spent a not inconsiderable amount of money, and to which he was 
constantly adding, by purchase or exchange, up to the last month of 
his life. 
