October 24, 1907] 



NA TURE 



643 



chiefly occupied his leisure. In i860 he crossed the 

 Andes, reaching the headwaters of the Amazons, and 

 descending that river to Pard, in Brazil, where he 

 made his first long halt. Few Englishmen had at 

 that time made a similar journey, which appears to 

 have been fraught with difficulty. 



After this journey Mr. Saunders returned to Eng- 

 land, and devoted himself to the study of ornithology 

 in real earnest. In South America he had acquired 

 an intimate acquaintance with the Spanish language, 

 so that in the numerous visits he paid to Spain be- 

 tween the years 1S63 and 1870 he found himself 

 thoroughly at home. Owing to these frequent visits 

 he became a recognised authority on the ornithology 

 of the Spanish peninsula, and in the year 1869 he 

 published in the Ihis the first of a series of important 

 papers on that subject. 



To those members of the British public interested 

 in birds, Mr. Saunders is, however, much better 

 known as the editor of the third and fourth volumes 

 of the fourth (and last) edition of " Yarrell's British 

 Birds," the late Prof. Newton, who had edited the 

 two earlier volumes, having found himself unequal 

 to the task of continuing the work, at the rate of issue 

 deemed necessary by the publishers. This work is 

 alone a monument to the e-\tensive knowledge and 

 unflagging industry of Mr. Saunders. In addition to 

 the conciseness and yet fulness of his descriptions, 

 the text of these two volumes is noteworthy on account 

 of the minuteness of detail with regard to the geo- 

 graphical distribution of the various species. The 

 first part of vol. iii. appeared in 1883, and the last 

 volume was completed in 1885. 



This, however, was by no means the only work on 

 British birds by Mr. Saunders. In 1887 he published 

 a list of the birds of our islands; and in 1888-9 "An 

 Illustrated Manual of British Birds," which originallv 

 appeared in parts, and of which a second edition was 

 issued during the years 1897-9. Terns, gulls, and 

 skuas were a group of birds in which Mr. Saunders 

 was specially interested, and he was engaged by the 

 Trustees of the British Museum to write the volume 

 on this group (Gaviae) for the famous series of " Cata- 

 logues," of which this volume is the twenty-fifth. It 

 was published in 1896. He was one of the contribu- 

 tors to the " bird volume " of the scientific results of 

 the cruise of the Challenger, which appeared in 1881, 

 and likewise wrote the article Birds in the " .Antarctic 

 Manual." He was also joint-author of the " Birds of 

 Lancashire," and had, indeed, an almost unrivalled 

 knowledge of the county distribution of British birds. 

 His papers in the Ibis, in addition to those on the 

 birds of Spain, are numerous, and, needless to say, 

 valuable. 



At an early stage in his career Mr. Saunders be- 

 came a member of the British Ornithologists' Union, 

 at the meetings of which he was a regular attendant, 

 while he also took a large share in the management 

 of that body. He was a Fellow of the Linnean, the 

 Zoological, and the Royal Geographical Societies, and 

 served on the council of each, as well as contributing 

 largely to the publications of the second named. The 

 Society for the Protection of Birds also claimed his in- 

 terest. For several years (1880-5) ^^^- Saunders was 

 secretary of Section D of the British Association; he 

 was also a member of the American Ornithologists' 

 Union, and on the foreign list of the .Soci^t^ Zoolo- 

 gique de France and of several other Continental scien- 

 tific bodies. In addition to ornithology, Mr. Saunders 

 also took an active interest in geograohical research, 

 especially that connected with the exploration of both 

 Dolar regions. His de.Tth will be felt as a personal 

 loss by a large circle of scientific friends, both in this 

 country and abroad. R. L. 



NO. 1982, VOL. 76] 



NOTES. 



The first Press messages by wireless telegraphy were 

 transmitted by the Marconi system across the Atlantic 

 Ocean, between Ireland and Cape Breton, on October 17. 

 Several congratulatory messages were exchanged between 

 the two continents. The Governor-General of Canada 

 dispatched a message from Ottawa congratulating the 

 King " on the establishment of a fresh link between 

 Canada and the Motherland," to which His Majesty re- 

 plied on the following day by the same method of com- 

 munication : — " His Majesty the King to Earl Grey, 

 London, October 18. — I thank you for your telegram. I 

 am delighted that wireless Transatlantic telegraphy should 

 unite the bonds between Canada and the Mother Country 

 so closely. — Edward R." The Irish station is situated 

 on a headland facing the Atlantic, about four miles from 

 Ciifden, in Galway, and is the largest wireless installation 

 in the United Kingdom. A number of tall masts, 

 arranged in a line facing seawards, contain a network of 

 wires on which messages are received and dispatched. 

 The operators have a telephonic apparatus with a sensitive 

 sounder attached to their ears, and it is their trained 

 sense of hearing and distinguishing the Morse signals 

 transmitted that enables them to detect the signals. It 

 is stated that signals are sent and received simultaneously, 

 and that a speed of about thirty words per minute has 

 already been attained. Full particulars of the modifications 

 in the apparatus and plant which have made the success 

 of last week possible will doubtless be forthcoming in due 

 course. Mr. Marconi and those at work with him are 

 to be congratulated upon their triumph over practical 

 difficulties, and men of science have reason for satisfaction 

 in this remarkable development of means of communication 

 by means of ether waves. The Marconi Company state 

 that any delays in the transmission of messages by their 

 system between North America and the United Kingdom 

 are attributable entirely to delays on the land lines. The 

 company claims that with a private wire from its station 

 at Glace Bay to Montreal, and from the Irish station to 

 London, the service between London and Montreal will 

 immediately compare favourably with the cable service in 

 point of speed. 



The Faraday lecture was delivered by Prof. Emil 

 Fischer, professor of chemistry in the University of Berlin, 

 at a meeting of the Chemical .Society held on October 18 

 at the Royal Institution. Sir William Ramsay, K.C.B., 

 president of the society, was in the chair. An abridgment 

 of the lecture appears in another part of the present issue. 

 At the conclusion of his discourse a medal was handed 

 to Prof. Fischer by Sir William Ramsay as a mark 

 of appreciation by the Chemical Society of his scientific 

 work. Sir Henry Roscoe proposed a vote of thanks to 

 the lecturer, and remarked that the great interest of the 

 lecture is due, not only to the fact that Prof. Fischer is 

 a master of his subject, but also because the application 

 of synthetic chemistry to biology is a subject that at the 

 present time exceeds in interest and importance any other 

 branch of the science. In seconding the vote, Sir James 

 Dewar mentioned that the centenary of the isolation of 

 potassium and sodium by Davy fell on the day following 

 that of the lecture. 



The death is announced of Prof. A. Fijrtwangler, pro- 

 fessor of classical archjeology in the University of Munich, 

 and a prolific writer on arch;eological subjects. 



The council of the Royal Meteorological Society has 

 awarded the Symons gold medal for 1908 to M. L. 



