THE LATE 

 MR. ROBERT SWINHOE, F.R.S 



We cannot pass over in silence the loss which Ornithology has experienced 

 in the death of Mr. Robert Swinhoe, one of our contributors. It is not 

 within the scope of this work to notice at length the many valuable additions 

 to the science humbly advocated by us which have been discovered by 

 Mr. Swinhoe. These will probably be enumerated by our contemporary 

 'The Ibis,' and others; but we think we have the general assent of those 

 best qualified to form an opinion when we say that not only Ornithology but 

 Zoology itself has suffered a chill, and sustained a check, by the removal from 

 our midst of the very painstaking and successful naturalist who has now been 

 taken away from us. Some scientific men have to contend with inadequate 

 pecuniary resources : the great Swedish naturalist, when a student at the 

 University of Upsala, was forced to put folded paper into his old shoes to 

 keep out the damp and cold — a state of things also not unknown to the 

 greatest of English lexicographers. Others are doomed to struggle against 

 ill health ; and Mr. Swinhoe, in consequence of his long residence in China, 

 was among the latter. His absence will be acutely felt, not only by the 

 Societies to which he belonged, and in particular by that one to whose 

 members this work is dedicated, but also by all those to whom the science 

 of Natural History is dear in every part of the world. 



Editor op the O. M. 



VOL. III. 



