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MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY IN THE 

 ROLL OF HONOUR. 



The Society has to deplore the loss of one of its keenest and most 

 distingmished members in the death of Major 0. H, T. Whitehead, 

 56th Rifles F. F., who was killed on 25th September 1915 while 

 serving with the New Army in France in a battalion of his old 

 regiment the Highland Light Infantry. Lt.-Col. Magrath writes 

 to us as follows : — " Whitehead's death hit me hard. We were 

 such fast friends and both so intimately associated in our joint 

 hobby of the ornithology of N. W. India and to its zoology 

 generally. It was in the beginning of 1905 that I first met 

 Whitehead and I remember my delight, as a beginner in ornitho- 

 logy, in finding one, quite as enthusiastic as myself, and with a 

 much greater knowledge. To me Whitehead was an ideal ' bird 

 man ' hard as nails, active, plucky, full of enthusiasm, tremendously 

 painstaking and with a keen scientific mind. His vision, hearing 

 and powers of observation were extremely acute, and it was rare 

 that a preliminary identification was not endorsed by his gun or 

 glasses. At the same time he was a trae Sportsman and Nature 

 Lover, and while not allowing sentiment to interfere with science, 

 never developed into that soulless creatui-e the collector pure and 

 simple. To one of similar tastes he was a delightful companion in 

 the field and one of the pleasantest recollections of my life is our 

 joint expedition to the Kurram Valley in 1907. We also enjoyed 

 together many ornithological rambles and investigations combined 

 with shooting trips in Kohat, Bannu, Peshawar and elsewhere. 

 Whitehead was never much addicting to writing papers or notes for 

 the-various Natural History Magazines to which he subscribed and 

 occasionally I had to urge him to do so and give his observations 

 and discoveries. He was always chary of seeing anything in print 

 under his name unless it embodied matter of scientific value and the 

 evidence for which had been thoroughly sifted. From the year 

 1905 to 1911 we kept up a steady correspondence and his letters 

 were always (no matter on what subject, though they were of course 

 mostly devoted to those concerning our hobby) of great interest, 

 and many were quite worth publication. 



Of coarse, as Adjutant, and later when working for the Staff 

 College, duty sadly interferred with his hobby and he had little or no 

 time for indulgence. To the work of others in the same line as his 

 hobby. Whitehead always gave generous recognition and of his own 

 work was correspondingly modest. His first venture into print was 

 I think the short paper in the Ibis concerning the birds observed in 

 the vicinity of a blockhouse he was holding on a railway line in 

 S. Africa during the Boer War. His most important paper how- 

 ever was that published in the same Journal on the Birds of Kohat 



