34§ 



Notes and Nezvs. F£|* 



physical standpoint. After ascribing the play of colors in various 

 objects to the physical action of structural differences on the light, not 

 to the coloring matter of the part, he speaks of the prismatic colors 

 seen in certain feathers when examined against a strong light (p. 244, 

 24s); and also states that the wonderful revelations of the microscope, 

 then in its infancy, would doubtless show in such feathers minute 

 prism-like structures as the cause of the iridescence — an interesting 

 prophecy in the light of our present knowledge. — Arthur P. Chad- 

 bourne, Boston, Mass. 



Birds Killed by a Storm.— About 11 o'clock p.m., on August 3, a 

 terrific electric storm, accompanied by hail and wind, struck this city. 

 Next morning the streets around the public parks and residence 

 portions were literally covered with dead English Sparrows and a few 

 Robins and other small birds. On one block in the residence portion 

 of the city there were, by actual count, six hundred and twenty-two 

 dead Sparrows, and one Robin. The nests containing eggs and young 

 were blown down, and birds not killed by the fall were killed by the 

 hail. Most of the old birds escaped, but the young, from just hatched 

 to a couple of months old, were mostly killed, and had to be raked off 

 the lawns and gathered up by street sweepers. A few more such storms 

 would rid us of the detestable Sparrow. — 'Walter I. Mitchell, St. Paul, 

 Minn, 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



Thomas Lyttleton, Lord Lilford, late President of the British 

 Ornithologists' Union, and Corresponding Member of the American 

 Ornithologists' Union, died at Lilford Hall, Oundle, Northamptonshire, 

 England, June 17, 1S96, at the age of 63 years. He was one of the 

 founders of the British Ornithologists' Union, and a prominent con- 

 tributor to the early volumes of ' The Ibis.' Among his larger works are 

 his ' Birds of Northamptonshire,' and ' Illustrations of British Birds.' 

 He was enthusiastically interested in Hawking and in the study of 

 live birds, his extensive aviaries containing many different kinds of Birds 

 of Prey, Storks, Ibises, Herons, and Water-fowl. " His loss," says 'The 

 Zoologist,' "will be deplored, not only by the learned societies of which 

 he was so distinguished a member, but by a very large circle of friends 

 and acquaintances to whom he had endeared himself by an unfailing 

 kindness of heart and constant readiness to help." 



