641 Ohiiuarij. 



Edward Arthur Butler. 



Lieut. -Colonel Edward Arthur Butler, a Member of the 

 British Ornithologists' Union since 1884, died at his 

 residence, Winsford Hall, Stokesby, near Great Yarmouth, 

 on April 16. 



Throughout his life — he was in his seventj^-tbird year — 

 he found in ornithology an abiding interest and pleasure. 



Born at Coton House, Warwicksbire, he was the third 

 son of the late Honble. Charles Lennox Butler, and a 

 grandson of the 13th Lord Dunboyne. Educated at Eton, 

 he entered the Army in 1864 as Ensign in the 83rd Regiment, 

 afterwards the 1st Battalion Boyal Irisb Rifles, and retired 

 with the rank of Lieut.-Colonel in 1884. Three years at 

 Gibraltar, where he enjoyed the friendship of Howard Irby, 

 gave him his first opportunity of collecting abroad, and 

 were followed by eleven years of service in India, during 

 which he became one of the keenest of the band of 

 ornithologists of which Allan Hume was the head. He 

 contributed to 'Stray Feathers' an account of a visit to 

 the island of Astola in the Persian Gulf, the great breeding- 

 place of Sterna bergii, and a series of. articles on the 

 Avifauna of Mount Aboo and Northern Guzerat, while 

 his egg-collecting experiences were described in many 

 notes in Hume's 'Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds.' 

 In 1880 he published in the Bombay Gazeteer a "Catalogue 

 of the Birds of the Southern Portion of the Bombay 

 Presidency." 



The outbreak of the first Boer War took him to South 

 Africa, where he met with two congenial spirits in Major 

 H. W. Feilden and Capt. S. G. Reid. The three of them 

 devoted as much time as they could to the study of the 

 local avifauna, and collaborated in publishing their notes 

 in the ' Zoologist/ and in contributing to * The Ibis ' an 

 article on the '' Variations of Plumage in Saxicola monti- 

 cola" (1883, p. 331). After the conclusion of peace his 

 regiment was brought home, and Butler was stationed for 



