( 2 ) 



He, so far from objecting to it, espoused it most warmly ; he 

 said that as to the advantages of a special organ there could 

 be no doubt ; that he wished each science could in like manner 

 obtain a special representative; that he would himself contribute 

 to it any ornithological papers he wrote in future ; and that the 

 only thing to guard against was a fiasco — the publication of 

 two or three numbers, and then the cessation of the periodical. 



He was the first person who heard anything of the scheme. 

 The latest paper he ever wrote was an, alas ! unfinished one, 

 on the birds that winter in Kashgar, prepared specially for Stray 

 Feathers ; and the satisfaction that I, in common with, I be- 

 lieve, the majority of Indian ornithologists, must feel at the 

 success that has attended this Journal, is altogether damped by 

 the ever-present memory of the loss of that friend, whose 

 unselfish love of science led him to cheer on from the first an 

 undertaking which smaller men, similarly placed, might, with 

 no little show of reason, have discouraged, and who ceased not 

 thenceforth to aid and support it by all the means in his 

 power. 



I write no separate obituary of FERDINAND STOLICZKA, 

 — a name that will survive even the marble memorial the Viceroy 

 is about to erect to him in our magnificent museum — that has 

 been already worthily done by his confreres in the Geo- 

 logical Survey and by the Government of India in its official 

 Gazettes ; but of all' who have lost by or grieved over the un- 

 timely eclipse of Stoliczka's genius, none have lost more than 

 Stray Feathers or grieved more than its Editor. 



To return ; the notion that Stray Feathers might possibly 

 interfere in any way with our scientific palladium, the Journal 

 of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, is much like that enter- 

 tained in England, when I was a boy, as to the probable 

 effects of Railways on road and canal traffic. _ As a fact, 

 the Railways have made their own traffic, and in most cases 

 have increased that also of both roads and canals. 



The establishment of the Ibis has in no way diminished the 

 value, even ornithologically considered, of the Proceedings of 

 the Zoological Society. On the contrary, the establishment of 

 a special organ gave an enormous impetus to ornithology, 

 observers were multiplied, and even old-established observers 

 began to put their observations more freely on record than 

 before; and while the Ibis for many years continued facile 

 princeps of all periodicals where ornithology was concerned, the 

 proceedings of the Zoological Society also grew richer year by . 

 year in matters of interest to ornithologists. 



