162 Obituary. 



the attack that he fell, mortally, wounded, on the very 

 parapet of the trench which was being stormed. 



Whitehead's loss is one which will be felt, not only by his 

 personal friends, which included all who knew him, but 

 also by the ornithological world, for he was one of the most 

 accurate and painstaking of field-naturalists, and he was 

 already making his mark iu Indian ornithology. 



His work on the north-west frontier of India resulted in 

 the extension of the known, habitat of many birds, and 

 amongst the most striking of his discoveries was undoubtedly 

 that of the breeding-haunts of that little-known bird Acro- 

 cephalus agricola concinens, the Chinese race of the Paddy- 

 field Warbler of India. He also discovered, together with 

 its nest and eggs, a new Thrush, Oreocincla whiteheadi Baker, 

 at an elevation of some 12,000 feet, in the Khagan valley. 



To the ' Ibis ' Whitehead contributed two important 

 papers, one on the birds observed by him on the Orange 

 River in South Africa in 1901-2, when stationed on the line 

 of block-houses running along that river between Aliwal 

 North and Norval's Pout during the later part of the Boer 

 War (Ibis, 1903, pp. 222-238). A second paper was that 

 on the birds of Kohat and Kurram, on the borders of 

 Afghanistan, prepared with the assistance of Major H. A. F. 

 Magrath ; in this little-known region, at the junction of 

 the Palsearctic and Indian regions, he discovered the very 

 interesting hybrid Bulbuls [Molpastes intermedius x M. leuco- 

 genys) : this was also published in the ' Ibis ' (1909, pp. 90- 

 134, 214-284, 620-623). Many shorter articles and notices 

 were sent to the 'Journal'' of the Bombay Natural History 

 Society and to the ' Bulletin ' of the B. O. C. 



In person Whitehead was singularly charming, very 

 earnest and thorough in all he undertook. At the same time 

 he had a somewhat reserved manner, and his great modesty 

 prevented him from publishing much of the interesting work 

 he accomplished in the little-known region in which lie 

 spent so many years. He was elected a Member of the 

 Union in 1903, and was only 34 years of age when he fell. 



