Obituary. 733 



which will be acceptable to American Ornithologists. After 

 a preface, in which the topography and ornithological history 

 of Essex County are described, the birds are taken according 

 to the order of the American Check-list, and remarks on 

 each of them are given. The total number of species and 

 subspecies considered is 354, of which 319 are now extant. 

 The lighthouses on the Essex coast have received special 

 attention, and it seems to be shown that the birds which 

 strike them nowadays are much less numerous than was 

 formerly the case. The most remarkable record is that of 

 September 3rd, 1899, on which night an enormous flock of 

 Phalaropes dashed against the lights on Cape Ann, " so that 

 the dead and dying covered the ground, and one man is 

 stated to have picked up 800 of them." 



The Ring-necked Pheasant (Phasianus torquatus), intro- 

 duced in 1893, is now a "common permanent resident in 

 Essex County. " 



XL1I. — Obituary. Sir Walter Buller. 



Sir Walter Lawry Buller, K.C.M.G., well known to all 

 ornithologists as the historian of the Birds of New Zealand, 

 and our chief authority on that subject, died at Fleet, 

 in Hampshire, on the 19th of July last. 



Sir Walter was born in 1838, and was the son of the 

 Rev. James Buller, of Canterbury, New Zealand, who was 

 descended from an old Cornish family of that name. Taking 

 the Law as his profession, he was Resident Magistrate 

 and Native Commissioner from 1862 to 1872. During 

 the Maori war of 1865 he served on Sir George Grey's staff 

 as a volunteer, for which he received a medal and was men- 

 tioned in despatches. In 1874 Sir Walter was called to the 

 English Bar, at the Inner Temple, and after that year was 

 frequently resident in this country, being appointed a 

 member of the New Zealand Commission for the Colonial 

 Exhibition of 1886, and of the Executive Council for the 



