^"^■ms^"*] ^otes and News. 233 



William Charlesworth Le\tey, son of William Marshall and Aune 

 Maud Charlesworth Levey, an Associate of the American Ornithologists' 

 Union, was born in Indianapohs, Indiana, November 13, 1887, and died 

 July 5, 1914, at his summer home on the east shore of Alton Bay, Lake 

 Winnepesaukee, New Hampshire. He was deeply interested in bird pro- 

 tection and conservation, and was a skilled photographer, some of his 

 pictures appearing in Forbush's 'Game Birds, W^ild Fowl and Shore Birds.' 

 His annotated lists of the birds of South Carolina, and of Alton Bay, New 

 Hampshire, were published in Maynard's 'Records of Walks and Talks 

 with Nature.' — J. H. S. 



Leslie Waldo Lake, an Associate of the American Ornithologists' 

 Union, died February 7, 1916. He was born April 25, 1849, in Hamburg 

 township, Erie Co., N. Y. He was principal of several schools, and from 

 1888 to 1891 was district School Commissioner. In the latter year he en- 

 gaged in business in Hamburg, where he always took a prominent part in 

 public affairs. Mr. Lake was one of the oldest and best known amateur 

 ornithologists in this section and was also much interested in botany and 

 archaeology. — T. L. B 



Since systematic ornithology is not much over a century and a half old we 

 have only recently begun to consider what was going on one hundred years 

 ago. This sort of retrospect is well worth while as it brings more clearly 

 to our attention the relative position of various important works whiich we 

 are accustomed to quote independently, without much regard to their 

 relationship to other pubhcations. A series of notes gathered by Dr. 

 Charles W. Richmond in his researches amongst the ornithological litera- 

 ture of the past, and kindly placed at the disposal of 'The Auk, ' throw some 

 interesting light on the progress of ornithology in 1816 — a really notable 

 year in the history of our science. 



The work which stands out as the great work of the year is of course 

 Vieillot's ' Analyse,' an unpretentious brochure of 128 pages in which a 

 classification of birds is set forth including some 138 new genera. It is 

 announced as among the new books for the week of April 20, 1816 (Bibl. 

 de la France of that date) though curiously enough Vieillot maintained 

 that it was published in December (Ferussac's Bull, xv, Sept. 1828, p. 143). 



Several authors tried to discredit Vieillot's important work by claiming 

 that he had had access to the Paris Museum's galleries and had adopted 

 various manuscript names which Cuvier had placed on the specimens 

 and which were about to be published in his 'Regne Animal,' which ap- 

 peared in December, 1916. (cf. Mathews Nov. Zool. XVIII, p. 18). A 

 'critique' on the ' Analyse ' was published by Temminck in Amsterdam in 

 1817. As a matter of fact Vieillot had the 'Analyse' in mind and at least 

 partly prepared long before 1816 {cf. his Ois. Chant, p. 74). In 1813 he 

 submitted the manuscript to the Turin Academy and in 1814 to the Lin- 

 QSBan Society of London neither of which accepted it. (Analyse, p. 20, 



