662 Obitaari/. 



Avhicli \vc need not specify. But what has been called the 

 '■' ini|)ress of liis vigorous personality" brought him into 

 conflict with a member of the Government, in Avhieli affair 

 lie is said to have been in the Mrong. lie returned to the 

 North-AVest Provinces, in 1870, as a Member of the Board 

 of Revenue, and in 1882 retired from the Indian Service. 



During his long career in the East, Hume, with the 

 assistance of many willing correspondents and friends, had 

 made an enormous collection of birds from every part of 

 the Indian Dominions, and stored them in his home at 

 Simla, in an apartment specially designed for the purpose, 

 lie had intended to publish a complete work on the Indian 

 Avifauna, when an unfortunate accident at Simla in 1885 

 destroyed his MS., then nearly complete. Naturally dis- 

 gusted with the prospect of having to rewrite such a work, 

 ami full of engagements of another sort, Hume now deter- 

 mined to ofler his whole collection of Birds to the Natural 

 History Museum at South Kensington. It might have been 

 supposed that such an offer would be rapturously accepted, 

 and that immediate arrangements would have been made for 

 the transfer of the collection to London. But the authorities 

 of the Museum did not see the matter in that light, and we 

 believe that it took nearly two years of negotiations before 

 Dr. Bowdler Sharpe, then head of the Bird-department, was 

 deputed to go out to India to fetch home the present, and 

 the mayn'ificent sum of .€300 was put down in the estimates 

 for that ])urpose. In 'The Ibis ' for 1885 (p. 45G) will be 

 found a lively account by Bowdler Sharpe himself of his 

 journey to Simla and his successful return to England with 

 02,000 bird-skins and 19,000 eggs, besides books and other 

 articles. 



Commencing in 18G7, a large series of Notes and Papers 

 from Hume, all relating to Indian Birds, will be found in 

 the pages of this journal, the last being dated in 1881. 

 But subsequently Hume appears to have lost all his interest 

 in Ornithology, though he was an occasional visitor to the 

 Bird-room at South Kensington. He turned to Botany, 

 and made a very large collection of British Plants, which 



