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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIII. No. 1101 



graph of the Felida, or Family of the Cats" 

 (folio, London, 1883, with 43 colored plates). 

 These works were not only important contri- 

 butions to science but as works of art were at 

 the highest level of such publications and 

 rendered their author famous throughout the 

 world, winning for him many decorations 

 from European governments. He was him- 

 seK an artist of no ordinary attainments, but 

 he sought for his illustrations the best talent 

 available abroad, including such eminent 

 draughtsmen as Wolf and Keulemans. 



During this period of nearly ten years 

 abroad he was a frequent sojourner in Paris, 

 in order to avail himself of the rich treasures 

 of the famous natural history museum of that 

 city, and became thus intimately associated 

 with many of the leading French zoologists. 

 Through his long residence in London he par- 

 ticipated in the scientific activities of the 

 British Ornithologists' Union and the Zoolog- 

 ical Society, and for a time was a member of 

 the Publication Committee of the latter. In 

 his recent " In Memoriam " of the late Philip 

 Lutley Sclater,! fg^ go many years the efficient 

 secretary of the Zoological Society and also 

 editor of The His, he has given a most en- 

 chanting reminiscence of the great naturalists 

 who were in that day at the height of their 

 activities and renown, but who have now, with 

 the single exception of F. Ducane Godman, 

 preceded Elliot to the great beyond. 



Although the labor of getting up his great 

 illustrated monographs must have been ab- 

 sorbing, he found time to prepare many tech- 

 nical papers on birds, which were published at 

 frequent intervals in The Ibis or in the Pro- 

 ceedings of the London Zoological Society. 

 At this time he was especially interested in 

 the Trochilidse, or Hummingbirds, the outcome 

 of which was his " A Classification and Synop- 

 sis of the Trochilidse," a quarto memoir of 

 about 300 pages, with numerous text illustra- 

 tions, published in the Smithsonian Contribu- 

 tions (Washington, 1879). 



Elliot's active temperament never permitted 

 him to remain long idle. Soon after his re- 

 turn from abroad he became one of the au- 



1 The Auk, XXXI., January, 1914, pp. 1-12. 



thors of the "bird volume" of Kingsley's 

 " The Standard Natural History," published 

 in 1885, to which he contributed the parts on 

 the (jallinae, the pigeons and the humming- 

 birds, and also began work on a new edition 

 of his " Monograph of the Pittidss." Since 

 the publication of the first edition in 1863, 

 the number of species of the group known to 

 science had nearly doubled, and in preparing 

 the new edition the test of the first was 

 wholly discarded, only a few of the plates be- 

 ing retained in the second, which now included 

 51 colored plates with wholly new and greatly 

 extended text. It was published in London by 

 Quarich (1893-1895). 



Another outcome of his long interest in the 

 Trochilidse was the formation while abroad of 

 a collection of these " gems of ornithology," 

 which he brought with him on his return to 

 New York early in 1883. This collection, 

 then probably unsurpassed by any other, he 

 later (in 1887) presented to the American Mu- 

 seum of Natural History, where it has since 

 remained as a standard reference collection 

 for the group. At about this date Dr. EUiot's 

 extensive and well-selected ornithological li- 

 brary passed to the museum by purchase. It 

 contained many rare as well as expensive 

 works, and for the first time the museum came 

 into possession of a reasonably adequate li- 

 brary of ornithology. 



In 1894 Elliot became curator of zoology at 

 the Field Columbian Museum at Chicago, 

 from which office he resigned in 1906 and re- 

 turned to New York. During his curatorship 

 at this institution the zoological department 

 at the Field Museum made rapid strides 

 through his energetic efforts, and it was also 

 a period of marked activity in his literary 

 career. In 1896 he made an expedition to 

 Africa in the interest of this museum, passing 

 through Somaliland and Ogaden on his way 

 to the Boran country, where his work was 

 checked by serious illness. He succeeded, how- 

 ever, in bringing back a large collection of 

 birds and mammals, which became not only 

 the basis of important exhibits in the museum 

 but of important papers giving the results of 

 his explorations. He later made a difficult 



