. 
Vol. XVII 
Mie Notes and News. 321 
Alphonse Milne-Edwards was born in Paris in 1835; he took his medi- 
cal degree in 1859, and in 1865 became a professor in the School of Phar- 
macy. In 1876 he was made, as assistant to his father, Professor of 
Zoology at the Jardin des Plantes, and in 1891 was appointed Director of 
the Paris Museum d’ Histoire Naturelle and of the Menagerie in the Jardin 
des Plantes, which positions he filled at the time of his death. He was 
long recognized as a leading authority in mammalogy and ornithol- 
ogy, and also achieved success in other lines of zodlogical research, in 
connection especially with deep-sea work. In 1881, assisted by a party of 
savants, he began, under the patronage of the French Government, a sur- 
vey of the Gulf of Gascony, and later in the ‘ Travailleur,’ and later still in 
the ‘Talisman,’ extended his work to the Canaries, the Cape Verde Is- 
lands,andthe Azores. In recognition of the importance of these researches 
he was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society. 
His ornithological work is recorded in a long list of papers and 
memoirs, beginning as early as 1866, but his most notable contributions 
are his great work entitled ‘Recherches Anatomiques et Paléontologiques 
pour servir a lHistoire des Oiseaux Fossiles de la France,’ published 
in parts, 1867-1872, consisting of four large quarto volumes, two of text 
and two of plates; and his ‘Recherches sur la Faune ornithologique 
étiente des [les Mascareignes et de Madagascar,’ 1866-1874. The first of 
these works made known for the first time the former existence in France 
of such tropical types as Trogon, the Secretary Bird, Parrots of the 
genus Pszttacus, Leptosomus, and Callocalia. In many respects this was 
a remarkable work, and a most highly important contribution to ornithol- 
ogy. His material was limited generally to the ‘long bones,’ or the 
bones of the limbs, and the proper determination of these led to an 
exhaustive study of the comparative osteology and myology of living 
birds, the results of which are incorporated in his work. His important 
researches on mammals, particularly of Madagascar and Central Asia, 
including the discovery of new and strange forms, do not call for special 
mention in the present connection. 
EpGAR LEopoLtp LAYARD, a Corresponding Member of the American 
Ornithologists’ Union, died at Budleigh Salterton, Devon, England, on 
January 1, 1900, in his 76th year. We take the following notice of this 
well-known ornithologist from the April number of ‘ The Ibis’ (p. 404) : 
‘‘Edgar Leopold Layard, C. M. G., .... was elected an Honorary Member 
of the B. O. U. in 1860, and was therefore one of our oldest as well as 
one of our most valued correspondents. He was born at Florence on 
July 23rd, 1824, and entered the Civil Service of Ceylon when twenty-two 
years of age; but after nine years his health gave way, and in 1855 he 
accepted the invitation of the late Sir George Grey to a post in the Civil 
Service at Cape Town. There he founded the South African Museum, 
and became its first curator; after which he accompanied Sir G. Grey on 
a special mission to New Zealand, and subsequently became judge and 
