440 London, Edinburgh, &; Dublin Philosophical Magazine. 



ence or effect, finally undermined his constitution ; and he was at last 

 compelled to relinquish all his occupations, and to seek for the resto- 

 ration of his health in rest and a change of scene. He arrived in 

 England on the 9th of January last ; but the powers both of his body 

 and his mind seemed to have been altogether worn out and exhaust- 

 ed ; and after lingering for a few months, he died on the 22nd of 

 April last, in the forty-first year of his age. The cause of literature 

 and archaeology in the East could not have sustained a severer loss." 

 " Mr. Nicholas Aylward Vigors was born in 1787, at Old Leighlin, 

 in the county of Carlow, where his family had long resided. After 

 the usual preparatory education, he proceeded to the University of 

 Oxford, where he became a very diligent and successful student. On 

 quitting the University, he purchased a commission in the Guards, 

 and distinguished himself highly at the battle of Barossa, by continu- 

 ing to bear the colours of his regiment after he was severely wound- 

 ed. On his return from the Peninsula, he was prevailed upon by 

 the earnest entreaties of his family, to quit the army ; and he devoted 

 himself afterwards, with characteristic ardour, to scientific and lite- 

 rary pursuits. 



Mr. Vigors was one of the founders, and the first, Secretary of the 

 Zoological Society, to whose Museum he gave his very valuable 

 collections of ornithology and entomology, which were the two 

 branches of natural history he had most carefully studied. He 

 was the author of a very elaborate paper in the Linnaean Transac- 

 tions,* " On the Natural Affinities which connect the Orders and 

 Families of Birds," in which he attempted to apply in detail the 

 same principles of arrangement that Mr. MacLeay had previously 

 sketched out in his Horee Entomological, in a more general way, as 

 applicable to the whole animal kingdom. He afterwards published, 

 in conjuction with Dr. Horsfield, another very valuable memoirf on 

 the Birds of Australia, grounded upon a rich collection from that 

 country, in the possession of the Linnaean Society, which they des- 

 cribed and arranged according to their natural affinities. He was 

 likewise the principal editor, during several years, of the " Zoologi- 

 cal Journal," in which he wrote many memoirs, chiefly devoted to 

 the further exposition of his views with respect to the affinities of 



* Linnaean Transactions, vol. xiv- t Linnaean Transactions, vol. xv. 



