292 Obituary. 



marvellous variety of bird-life periodically visiting the island, 

 especially during the vernal and autumnal migrations. The 

 frequent sight of so many strange and beautiful birds induced 

 him first to commence a small collection ; then came a great 

 desire to know all about his specimens, whence they came 

 and whither they went; and so his study of ornithology 

 began and grew into a passion, and was persevered in for 

 fifty years. For during this time he was rarely absent from 

 the island. He had, however, one most memorable visit of 

 two months — September to November — to Edinburgh and 

 Scotland, the memory of which remained very fresh to the 

 end of life, and he often spoke or Avrote of the great silent 

 hills and the leagues of purple heather. 



From his copious notes and diaries, the accumulation of 

 over fifty years, he wrote his remarkable book * Die Vogel- 

 warte Helgoland,' the value and importance of which to 

 students of migration it is difficult to overrate. In 1874, 

 when the writer first made Herr Gatke's acquaintance, this 

 had already made considerable progress, but it was not till 

 sixteen years later, in May 1890, that the last line was 

 written. The first and German edition, under the editorship 

 of his friend and countryman. Professor Rudolph Blasius, 

 was published at Brunswick in 1891, and the excellent 

 English edition and translation at Edinburgh in 1895, every 

 line of this being revised and corrected by the author. This 

 indeed was a matter for congratulation, for very shortly 

 after a serious attack of influenza he became partially 

 disabled by the disease — paralysis — which carried him off 

 sixteen months later. 



Before 1874 Herr Gatke knew little of English ornitholo- 

 gists or their work. In ' The Ibis ' for 1862, p. 58, appeared 

 a translation of a paper by Dr. Blasius in connection with the 

 most noteworthy captures on the island, originally published 

 in ' Naumannia ' (1858, p. 803). There was also a list contri- 

 buted by Gatke himself to the ' Edinburgh New Philosophical 

 Journal ' (new series, ix. p. 333) , and this comprised almost 

 all the ornithological information on Heligoland that was 

 known in England. His library in 1874 was very limited. 



