80 Notes and News. [ January 
joyed his friendship, Mr. Stevenson was a delightful companion; his 
powers of observation seemed almost intuitive, while his genial nature 
endeared him to all.” 
Count AuGust FRIEDRICH MARSCHALL, a Corresponding Member of 
the American Ornithologists’ Union, died October 11, 1887. in his eighty- 
third year. Duringhis long scientific career he was particularly interested 
in geology, but zodlogy is also indebted to him for many valuable contri- 
butions, one of the most important of which is his ‘ Nomenclator Zoolo- 
gicus’ (Vienna, 1873). As an original ornithological author he was not 
prolific, most of his contributions to ornithology consisting of excerpts 
from other authors relating to birds belonging to the Austro-Hungarian 
fauna. With August von Pelzeln he was joint author of the ‘ Ornis Vin- 
dobonensis’ (Vienna, 1882). 
News from Central Asia travels slowly, and beyond the mere notice 
that our distinguished Corresponding Member, the celebrated Russian 
traveller, General Prjevalsky, is dead, but little is as yet known as to 
the particulars of the sad event. We gather the following notes chiefly 
from a recent account by his friend Mr. Venjukoff. 
Nicolas Michailovitch Prjevalsky (also often written Przewalski) 
died in Karakol on Noy.1 ( Oct. 20), 1888, while engaged in the preparations 
for his departure to Thibet, in the full vigor of his manhood, being only 
fifty years of age. While still a young man he manifested great interest 
in travel and exploration, and shortly after leaving the Military Academy 
he was entrusted with the exploration of the valley of the Ussuri in east- 
ern Siberia (1867-1868). Since then he has undertaken four great 
expeditions to Central Asia in which he gained a world-wide fame as one 
of the most intrepid, indomitable, and successful travellers who ever 
attempted to penetrate to the ‘back-bone’ of the Eurasian continent 
(1870-1873, China; 1876-1877, the Central Asian desert region, discoy- 
ering the position of Lake Lob-nor; 1879-1880, exploring Kuku-nor and 
northeastern Thibet; 1883-1885, studying the orography of the Kuen- 
lun, from the sources of the Yellow River to Khotan). But unlike 
many other travellers, whose only aim is to ‘ discover’ new countries, he 
also studied their natural history, and if we consider the enormous difli- 
culties of transportation in those regions we can but admire his truly Rus- 
sian pluck in bringing back to St. Petersburg 30,000 specimens of natural 
history objects, of which 5,000 specimens were birds, representing 430 
species, besides 400 eggs. ‘The short intervals between his great expedi- 
tions did not leave him time to work up all of this enormous material, yet 
he found leisure to publish several important ornithological papers, chief 
among which are his ‘Materials for the Avifauna of Mongolia and the 
Tangatan Country’ (published in 1876, and translated in Rowley’s ‘Orni- 
thological Miscellany,’ Vol. II), and a paper ‘On new species of Central- 
Asian Birds’ (Ibis, 1887, pp. 401-417), for, as Prjevalsky himself observes, 
ornithology was one of the chief objects of his special investigations. It 
is the more to be regretted that he should not have lived to undertake the 
