^'°'i9l0^" ] ^^'«'«s and News. 363 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



' Concealing Coloration.' 



Editors of 'The Auk,' 



Dear Sirs: — In your most gratifying review of our book, 'Concealing 

 Coloration,' there is only one thing that I could care to amend, and that 

 is the share in the authorship allotted to my son Gerald H. Thayer. 



Being more indebted to him for writing this book than I can ever repay, 

 and he being a professional writer, I owe it to him to make it clearly under- 

 stood that while with only secondary exceptions the book's vtaterial is 

 mine, yet the whole book as a book — its scheme and every sentence in it 

 (except, of course, the passages signed by me, which owe much to his 

 revision) — is entirely his. But for him I could not only never have found 

 time and energy to produce any book at all, but could not in any literary 

 sense have at all equalled this one. 



Sincerely yours, 



Abbott H. Thayer. 

 Monadnock. N. H., 

 Mav 20. 1910. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



Alexander O'Driscoll Taylor, an Associate of the American Ornithol- 

 ogists' Union since 1888, died at his home in Newport, Rhode Island, on 

 April 10, 1910, in the seventy-ninth year of his age, after a short illness 

 from pneumonia. He was born in Cork, Ireland, January 2, 1832, and came 

 to this country in 1883. He soon after became disbursing agent of the 

 survey for the Northern Pacific Railroad, and later was connected for a 

 time with the United States Geological Survey. He engaged in the real 

 estate business in Newport in 1885, and for twenty-five years was active 

 in the business, municipal, and educational interests of the city of his 

 adoption. He was deeply interested in natural history, being a well- 

 informed amateur in various lines, especially in ornithology. He took a 

 verj' active part in the work of the Newport Natural History Society, of 

 which he was curator in 1885-1887, secretary in 1888, and president from 

 1889 till his decease. He was also the head of the Rhode Island Game 

 Commission, a devoted champion of bird protection, and did much to popu- 

 larize the study of natural history. He is survived by two sons and a 

 daughter. 



