Letters, Extracts, Notices, ^c. 581 



spingus cristatus, which has not hitherto been met with so 

 far south. 



Mr. O. V. Aplin (see above, p. 350) left England on 

 Sept. 1st on his ornithological expedition to Uruguay. 



The " Who-are-you" of JVaterton. — Mr. Quelch (cf. 

 'Timehri/ vol. vi. new ser. p. 172) has obtained a specimen 

 of the Goatsucker of British Guiana, named by Waterton, 

 from its peculiar call, " Who-are-you " {' Wanderings,' 

 p. 14-1), and identifies it as Nyctidrovms albicollis, a well- 

 known species, Avidely distributed in the Neotropical Region. 



Retirement of Prof . Cabanis. — After fifty years' service in 

 the Berlin Museum, Professor Cabanis has celebrated his 

 jubilceum, and has retired into well-earned repose, but con- 

 tinues, we are glad to say, in excellent health. He is suc- 

 ceeded in the care of the celebrated collection of Birds by 

 Dr. Anton Reichenow, General Secretary of the Allgemeine 

 Deutsche Ornitholoaische Gesellschaft. 



Obituary : Dii. H. C. C. Burmeister. — Hermann Charles 

 Conrad Burmeister, the veteran Zoologist, avIio died at 

 Buenos Ayres on the 2nd of May last at the age of 85 years, 

 was born at Stralsund in 1 807. Whilst a student of Medicine 

 at Halle he studied zoology under Nitzsch, and took his 

 degree as Doctor of Philosophy in 1829. Shortly after this 

 he published his excellent ' Handbuch der jSTaturgeschichte.^ 

 On the death of Nitzsch in 18i2 Burmeister succeeded to 

 the Chair of Zoology at Halle, and continued there till 1848, 

 when he became involved in politics, and was elected by his 

 fellow-citizens Deputy to the short-lived National Assembly. 

 When matters became quiet again this escapade led to his 

 being granted two years' leave of absence from the University, 

 and proceeding to Brazil, where he joined Lund, the well- 

 known Scandinavian Naturalist, at Lagoa Santa in the Pro- 

 vince of Minas Geraes. Here, as we have been told, Burmeister 

 had the misfortune to break his leg, and was carefully nursed 

 by Lund, and the late Prof. Eeinhardt, who happened to be 



