OBITUARY. 239 



bird has been scarce for years. Yet I do not suppose anyone would 

 contend that it has suffered in the least from human persecution, 

 direct or indirect, or that any amount of protection and County 

 Council orders would have any effect on its future status. — 0. V. 

 Aplin (Bloxham, Oxon). 



Breeding of the Honey-Buzzard in England. — In reply to Mr. 

 Heatley Noble's note under the above heading (ante, p. 200), I should 

 like to say that my reference to Burnham Beeches, " Berks," is a 

 quotation from the ' Ibis ' for 1865, p. 13. Cf. Charlesworth's 

 ' Magazine of Natural History,' p. 539. — F. C. E. Jourdain (Clifton 

 Vicarage, Ashburne, Derbyshire). 



AMPHIBIA. 

 Palmate Newt in Shropshire. — In May last I had brought to me 

 several Newts out of about thirty taken by some children from a 

 pond at Church Stretton. All those which I saw were Molge palmata 

 in full breeding dress. This is quite a new locality for the species, 

 which has previously been recorded in Shropshire only from the 

 Forest of Wyre, where it was first discovered by Mr. J. Steele Elliott. 

 A dried-up specimen sent to me from Shifnal some ten years ago 

 was, I believe, of this species, but it was so withered that I could 

 not be certain of its identity. — H. E. Foreest (Shrewsbury). 



B I T U A E Y. 

 Egbert Service. 



Mr. Egbert Service died at his residence in Maxwelltown, 

 Dumfriesshire, on May 8th, at the age of fifty-six. He had for some 

 time been in poor health, mainly owing to worries connected with his 

 business of nurseryman and seedsman. He was an accomplished 

 naturalist and a keen observer, with a thorough knowledge of the 

 birds, beasts, fishes, and insects of the South of Scotland, and of their 

 haunts and habits. 



Much that he knew is lost with him, but many of his original 

 observations are recorded in the notes and papers which he con- 

 tributed to ' The Zoologist,' the ' Annals of Scottish Natural History,' 

 and the ' Transactions ' of the Natural History Societies of Dumfries- 

 shire and Galloway, Glasgow, and Edinburgh. He was the author of 



