3,20 Obituary. 



Colonial Office and the Natural History Museum to lead an 

 expedition to that desolate spot, to investigate and report on 

 the condition of the whale and seal fisheries in the island. 



Barrett-Hamilton, who was the eldest son of the late 

 Captain Samuel Barrett-Hamilton, J. P., of Kilmanock, 

 Co. Waterford, Ireland, was born on May the 18th, 1871, 

 and was educated at Harrow, and subsequently at Trinity 

 College, Cambridge, where he graduated in ISQ-l. He was 

 called to the Bar at the Inner Temple in 1896. From his 

 school-days he was interested in Natural History, and he 

 wrote an excellent list of Harrow birds published as one 

 of the Harrow School Scientific Memoirs in 1892. 



After taking his degree he was appointed to accompany 

 Prof. D'Arcy Thompson, who was sent by the Colonial 

 Office in 1896 to make a joint investigation with a 

 Commission from the United States Government, on the 

 condition of the fur seals and the industry in the north 

 Pacific and Behring Sea. Leaving England in 1896, and 

 travelling via San Francisco and Japan, Barrett-Hamilton 

 reached Petropavlovsk in Kamchatka in July, and spent 

 the summer in the Seal Islands, In the following year he 

 again returned, this time via Egypt and Ceylon. Some 

 account of his travels was published in the Journal of the 

 Royal Geographical Society for 1898 (pp. 280-299), and 

 the 'Scottish Geographical Magazine' for 1899 (pp. 225-256), 

 while he wrote for 'The Ibis' (1900, pp. 271-298) an 

 interesting account of the birds of Kamchatka which he 

 met with during those journeys, and described from there a 

 new species of Nutcracker {Caryocatactes kamchatkensis). 



Barrett-Hamilton joined the 5th or Militia Battalion of the 

 Royal Irish Rifles in 1893, and served with them in 1901-2 

 in South Africa during the Boer war. The greater part of his 

 time he was stationed at Vredefort Road Station on the rail- 

 way between Bloemfontein and Johannesburg, a desolate 

 spot, but he was able to make large collections of birds and 

 mammals, which he sent home to the British Museum, and 

 so beguiled the tedium of his job. He obtained the Queen's 



