132 THE AUSTRAL AVIAN RECORD [Vol. III. 



time and paper with ill-thought remarks. North resented 

 this, but his work shows that the critics would have been 

 better treated had he dealt with their quibbles at first hand. 

 This early work shows that it was unnecessary for him to 

 take too seriously the little pinpricks which annoyed him. 



While preparing the Special Catalogue No. 1 he contributed 

 short notes to the Ibis, Linnean Society of New South Wales, 

 Victorian Naturalist, Records of the Australian Museum, 

 Royal Society of South Australia, etc. He also wrote up the 

 birds collected by the Horn Scientific Expedition, published 

 in 1896, and prepared the Birds of the County of Cumberland 

 for the use of the members of the Australian Association for 

 the Advancement of Science, January, 1898. 



He was appointed Ornithologist to the Australian Museum 

 on August 4, 1891, was elected a Corresponding Fellow of the 

 American Ornithologists' Union in 1902, and a Colonial 

 Member of the British Ornithologists' Union in 1903. He was 

 also a Colonial Member of the Zoological Society of London. 



I met him at my hotel in Sydney at the end of May, 1914, 

 when he explained how ill he had been, and that he was still 

 suffering. 



North was no species maker nor did he indulge much in 

 the naming of subspecies, but he had a good eye and 

 constantly discriminated the racial forms. 



A few genera were distinguished by him as Spathopterus, 

 Trichodere, Woodfordia, a few r species and a few subspecies 

 only being named. As a general rule his names have remained 

 valid, though in some cases he was anticipated in the naming 

 of a subspecies. This is the more unexpected, as he had so 

 much material to choose from. Again, he was unfortunate 

 when he did publish original research in connection with 

 overlooked names, as regards the Fan-tailed Cuckoo, for instance. 

 His publications, however, stamped him as a careful, enthusiastic 

 and conservative worker : had he been more progressive, 

 Australian ornithology would certainly have benefited more, 

 but in any case he was handicapped by the lack of a complete 

 library, and his series of birds was never extensive. In a 



