iSgo.] Notes and News. 4. 1 I 



I thought, ornithologists of some authority, but got no satisfactory 

 answers. One even wrote to me that perhaps it was dew formed on the 

 eggs. Just think of dew, at midday, on the sand blazing under a semi- 

 tropical sun, with not a particle of shade except when the sky is overcast! 

 Cannot any of your readers throw some light on the subject? 



The voung are just the color of the sand. I have followed their trails 

 through the sand for fifty or a hundred yards and found the little downy 

 fellows with not a feather on them. How they escape the foxes, raccoons, 

 and opossums, besides the numerous Hawks, is more than I can tell. 

 Yours respectfully, 



Gideon Mabbett. 

 Rodnry, Miss iss ipp /'. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



William Kitchen Parker, F. R. S., an Honorary Member of the 

 American Ornithologists' Union died suddenly July 3, 1S90, at Cardiff, 

 Wales, at the age of 67 years. He was born at Dogsthorpe, near Peter- 

 borough. While still a youth he was apprenticed to a chemist. Later he 

 studied medicine, settling at Pimlico in 1S49. I" natural history he was 

 at hist deeply interested in botany, and later on in the study of the Foramin- 

 iferas, to which his earlier papers relate. In 1S65 he began the publication 

 of a series of valuable papers on the morphology of the skull in Vertebrates, 

 beginning with the Ostrich, and including the Parrot, the Common Fowl, 

 and representatives of the principal types of Vertebrates, from mammals 

 to fishes. In 1S6S he brought out his well-known wonderful, 'Monograph on 

 the Structure and Development of the Shoulder-girdle and Sternum in the 

 Vertebrata.' He was also the author of the article on the Anatomy of Birds 

 in the last edition of the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica.' His contributions to 

 ornithology are mainly anatomical, and include among others the follow- 

 ing: 'On the Osteology of BaUvniceps rex' 1860-62; On the Osteology of 

 the Genera P/croch's, Syrrhaptes, Hemipodiiis, and Tiiiamus,' 1S62: 'On 

 the Svstematic Position of the Crested Screamer (JPalamedea c/iavaria) ,' 

 1S63-64; 'On the Skeleton of the Arduropteryx and on the relation of 

 the Bird to the Reptile,' 1864; 'On the Osteology of the Kagu {Rhin- 

 ochetus jubatus)' 1S64 ; 'On the Structure and Development of the Skull 

 in the Ostrich Tribe,' 1S66; 'On the Osteology of Gallinaceous Birds 

 and Tinamous,' 1S66; 'On ^Egithognathous Birds," 1S73-76; 'On the 

 Development of the Wing in the Common Fowl,' iSSS; 'On the Sys- 

 tematic Position of the Swifts,' 1SS9. In 1S77 he summarized the 

 results of his previous studies in a volume on 'The Morphology of 

 the Skull.' He also left unpublished memoirs on the Morphology of 

 the Anatidre and the Alcidae. In 1S74 he was appointed Hunterian Pro- 

 fessor of Comparative Anatomy at the Royal College of Surgeons. He 

 was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1S65, and for a time was Pres- 



