206 



NATURE 



\7an 2, 1879 



captain, and obtained a commission in the Grenadier 

 Guards. But the ordinary guardsman's life in times of 

 peace was inadequate to his aspirations, and reaching the 

 rank of captain, he was soon after appointed aide-de-camp 

 to Sir Henry (afterwards Lord) Hardinge, then Governor- 

 General of India, and in that capacity accompanied his 

 chief through the ever-memorable campaign of the Sutlej. 

 After the English arms had triumphed in the conquest of 

 the Punjab, Lord Arthur was attached to a mission, the 

 details of which, we believe, have never been made public, 

 to some of the tribes bordering upon our northern frontier, 

 and in discharge of that duty reached places unvisited by 

 any European traveller since the days of Moorcroft. 

 Lord Arthur's services in India and the adjacent countries 

 lasted over several years, in the course of which time his 

 attention was attracted by their rich and little-known 

 fauna, and he not only formed the acquaintance, but 

 assiduously cultivated the friendship of two of the 

 greatest Indian zoologists of the time— Jerdon and 

 Blyth — of whom he became an apt pupil, fishes and birds 

 being particularly the objects of his pursuit. Returning 

 home at length he resumed his regimental duties, and on 

 the outbreak of the Russian war, in 1854, he accom- 

 panied the expeditionary force first to Turkey and thence 

 to the Crimea, taking part in the operations which ended 

 in the fall of Sebastopol. Soon after the conclusion of 

 peace he left the army, and his old zoological tastes, 

 which had been growing slack, returned to him more 

 strongly than ever. On the death of his eldest brother. 

 Lord Gifford, he became heir to his father's honours 

 and estates, and assumed the courtesy title of Lord 

 Walden, by which, perhaps, he will be most generally 

 recognised, for under that designation he published the 

 greater part of his contributions to zoology, and under it 

 he succeeded the late Sir George Clerk as President of 

 the Zoological Society, performing the duties of that 

 office with a singular amount of dignity and urbanity. 

 For several years he continued to live in a cottage he 

 had built for himself at Chislehurst, and there he began 

 to form an ornithological library and collection on a 

 scale almost unattempted hitherto in this country, though 

 the collection was supposed to be limited to Indian, or at 

 least Asiatic, specimens. On the death of his father, at 

 a very advanced age, in 1876, Lord Walden inherited 

 the Scottish peerage and estates, and thenceforth his 

 home was mainly the old ancestral seat of Yester, near 

 Haddington, where he entered, with the energy natural 

 to his character, upon the life of an agriculturist ; in this 

 respect following the example of his father, who had long 

 since turned his sword into a ploughshare, and had 

 earned the reputation of being one of the most scientific 

 farmers in that part of North Britain, which is the head- 

 quarters of scientific farming. 



The late Lord Tweeddale was a frequent and, when 

 occasion required, a powerful writer. Most of his ac- 

 knowledged communications are to be found in the 

 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, the Ibis, and 

 the Proccedins;s and Transacticms of the Zoological 

 Society, but it is believed that his anonymous contribu- 

 tions to the public press were still more numerous, 

 though these were seldom on scientific topics. He 

 married twice : first, the daughter of the late Count 

 Kielmansegge, for many years the popular Minister of 

 Hanover at this Court, who died in 1 871, and secondly, 

 a daughter of Mr. Mackenzie of Seaforth, who survives 

 him. 



One word must be said of Lord Tweeddale' s gene- 

 rosity. No reasonable project for the advancement of 

 zoology in any of its branches was ever started but he 

 was ready to support it liberally. His loss will be deeply 

 felt by a wide circle of his brother ornithologists, and 

 the Zoological Society will find it very difficult to replace 

 him in its presidency, a post which seems to require a 

 peculiar position of scientific and social rank. 



NOTES 

 We are happy to state that at the end of the last legislative 

 session the French Central Bureau of Meteorology obtained 

 from the National Exchequer a sum of 120,000 francs, required 

 for the organisation of the services which were decreed in the 

 month of June. A semi- monthly paper will be issued by the 

 Bureau summarising the results of observations during that 

 period. The work of normal schools, which had been sus- 

 pended during two or three years, will be resumed and published 

 as in former times. 



The French Minister of Public Works has prepared a most 

 important decree, which was signed on December 20 last. For 

 the execution of the great works which have been voted by the 

 French Parliament, an auxiliary corps of Fonts- et-Chaussees- 

 engineers has been created. The members of this newly created 

 body will enjoy the same privileges as the government engineers 

 who have been trained at the Polytechnic School. The conse- 

 quence is that the privileges of that celebrated establishment are 

 practically at an end, and the principle that office should be 

 given to the fittest irrespective of their origin has a fair chance 

 of becoming an axiom of the French administration. 



The first part of a posthumous work by Prof. Poggendorf oi> 

 the History of Physics has been sent us by Messrs. Williams and 

 Norgate. It will be completed in three parts and will contain 

 much interesting matter collected by the late eminent physicist 

 during his long career as lecturer at the Berlin University. We 

 have also received the first part of the " Publications of the 

 Astrophysical Observatory of Potsdam," containing observa- 

 tions of sun-spots from October, 187 1, to December, 1873, by 

 Dr. Sporer. 



From Science NclUs we learn that Mr. Alex. Agassiz left 

 Cambridge (U.S.) on December I for a second dredging-trip in 

 the West Indies on the Coast Survey steamer Blake. The 

 specimens scciured by him are divided among scientific men in 

 Europe and America, who work them up, while many of them, 

 go in'.o his own Cambridge collection. This year he will cruise 

 between the Windward Islands and the coast of South America^ 

 having spent last winter in the Gulf of Mexico. 



The prominence given to science is a noteworthy feature im 

 the annual summaries for the past year which appear in most of 

 our newspapers. 



We have much pleasure in drawing our readers' attention to- 

 the'following circular concerning a Society for the Collection of 

 South African Folk Lore. The circular explains itself, and we 

 trust that those of our readers who are interested in the subject 

 will subscribe to the periodical which it is desired to start : — 

 " The exi--tence, among the aboriginal nations of South Africa^ 

 of a very extensive traditionary literature, is a well-known fact. 

 Not a few stories forming part of this literature have been 

 written down ; and as in some of them terms occur which no 

 longer appear to be used in colloquial language, and the meanings 

 of which are, in many instances, not fully understood, there is no. 

 doubt that ^^'e meet in them with literary productions of great 

 antiquity, handed down to the present generation in a somewhat 

 similar manner to that in which the Homeric poems reached the 

 age of Pisistratus. But European civilisation is gaining ground 

 among the natives, and within a few years the opportunities for 

 collecting South African folk-lore will be, if not altogether lost, 

 at least far less frequent than they are now. This would be a 

 great loss to ' the science of man,' particularly as there is much 

 which is exceptionally primitive in the languages and ideas of 

 the South African aboriginal races. There are not a few mis- 

 sionaries and other Europeans in South Africa who have ample 

 opportunities for collecting South African folk-lore. , Some of 



