434 Notes and News. [f^^ 



proposition to do away with some time honored name, such as Picus, on 

 grounds of priority would meet with a storm of opposition, we may by 

 continued generic subdivision abohsh it from the designation of every 

 woodpecker in the world save one, without protest! 



Prof. Alfredo Duoiis, elected a Corresponding Member of the American 

 Ornithologists' Union, died at his home in Mexico on January 7, 1910, in the 

 eighty-fourth year of his age. From a biographical sketch by Manuel M. 

 Villada in La Naturaleza we learn that he was born on April 10, 1826, in 

 Montpellier, France, son of Dr. Antonio Luis Delsescantz Duges. He 

 received the degree of doctor of medicine at Paris in 1852 and soon after 

 came to Mexico where the rest of his life was spent. 



He was professor of Natural history in the State University of Guanajuato 

 up to the time of his death and a constant contributor to LaNaturnleza, 

 while he published articles also in La Naturaliste, * The Auk ' and other 

 journals. Seventy-two titles are listed in the bibliography accompanying 

 Sen. Villada's sketch, most of which treat of reptiles in which he took 

 especial interest. Several species have been named in his honor, those 

 among birds being Basileuterus rujijrons dugesi Ridgw. and Dendroica 

 dugesi Coale. 



We note in ' The Ibis ' the announcement of the death of Mr. Eugene 

 William Gates on November 16, 1911. Mr. Gates was born on December 

 31, 1845, and spent much of his life in Burmah in the Public Works Depart- 

 ment of the Government of India. He was well known for his writings 

 on Indian Birds including the ' Birds of British Burmah' ; the bird volumes 

 of Blanford's ' Fauna of British India' ; ' Game Birds of India' etc. During 

 his later residence in England he compiled a catalogue of the collection of 

 birds' eggs in the British Museum and served as secretary of the British 

 Grnithologists' Union 1898-1901, editing a subject index to 'The Ibis' 

 1859 to 1894. 



Since our last notice ^ of the American Museum of Natural History's 

 Colombian Expedition, its explorations have been continued with most 

 valuable and interesting results. 



From a recent publication of the American Museum of Natural History 

 by Frank M. Chapman, containing a prehminary report on the 5000 birds 

 thus far received from the expedition and describing some forty new 

 Colombian birds, we learn that, in August, 1911, W. B. Richardson re- 

 turned home and L. E. Miller was joined by Arthur A. Allen of Ithaca. 

 Allen and Miller devoted September, Gctober and part of November to 

 work in the Quindio Region of the Central Andes, reaching the snow-line 

 on Santa Isabel at an altitude of 15,600 feet, and securing many species 

 new to Colombia as well as others new to science. 



1 ' The Auk ', July, 19H, p. 391. 



