340 Obituary. 



about. In a week or so after the bird is once more in full 

 plumage, I noticed that here and there along the narrow 

 vane, a shaft was absent, but in quite irregular spots, until 

 at last, after perhaps about a month, the shafts are bare, 

 and the racquets which broaden out at the extremities have 

 appeared — or, rather, are emphasized. 



My Motmot is in magnificent condition — a condition which 

 no bird in a wild state could excel, — his vigour and tightness 

 of plumage being very fine, so that I have a good subject to 

 study. 



As a description of my Motmot, with his interesting 

 habits, will be published in the 'Avicultural Magazine,' 

 along Avith a coloured plate of two birds, the one showing 

 the tail as first grown, the other with the bare shafts and 

 racquets, I will not further enlarge upon the subject or 

 trespass upon valuable space. 



^Nll.— Obituary, 



Henry Eeles Dresser. 



As was briefly announced in the last number of 'The Ibis,* 

 Mr. Dresser died at Cannes on November 28 last, at tlie 

 age of seventy-seven. He was one of the oldest members of 

 the Union, having been elected as long ago as 1865. He 

 held the post of Secretary from 1882 to 1888, and was 

 always active and prominent in the affairs of the Union and 

 in ornithology generally till a year or two ago, when he 

 became an invalid and was no longer able to take part in 

 our discussions. 



Dresser was born on May 9, 1838, at Thirsk, in York- 

 shire, where his grandfather had founded the Thirsk Bank. 

 His father, being a younger son, migrated to London in 1845 

 and started as a Baltic timber-merchant. Young Dresser, 

 after being at school at Bromley, in Kent, and at a German 

 school near Hamburg, entered his father's business and 

 travelled extensively in northern Europe from 1854 to 

 1862. Early in 1863 he took a cargo out to Texas, then 



