OBITUARY. 81 



Dr. Coues, who was one of the founders of the American 

 Ornithologists' Union, and at one time its President, became 

 Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy at Norwich 

 University, Vermont, in 1869, and held the chair of Anatomy in 

 the National Medical College from 1877 to 1883. For some 

 months prior to his death he had been in bad health, and on the 

 6th of December underwent "a serious surgical operation ; his 

 death, which took place at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Balti- 

 more, resulting from the same. 



H. E. D. 



Dr. Karl Euss. 



Dr. Karl Buss, the eminent German student of bird-life, 

 died on Sept. 29th, 1899. By his death both scientific aviculture 

 and ornithology have sustained a severe loss. 



Dr. Buss was always careful either personally to describe, or 

 to obtain accurate descriptions of, the young plumage of all 

 birds bred in captivity, from the egg until the change to the 

 adult plumage ; he noted the character and number of eggs, the 

 duration of incubation, the age at which the young left the nest, 

 and that at which their adult plumage was attained. Lastly, he 

 carefully noted the colouring and variation in the soft parts in 

 every adult bird which he described. 



Buss was the son of an apothecary, and was born on Jan. 14th, 

 1833; he was therefore only in his sixty-seventh year when he 

 died ; yet he lived to complete the last volume of what he himself 

 calls " the principal work" of his life in 1898, and saw it published 

 in 1899. 



'Die Fremdlandischen Stubenvogel,' in four volumes, with 

 effective (though hardly scientific) chromo-lithographic plates, is 

 well worth the consideration of the most exclusive ornithologists; 

 they may find much therein which will be new to them — facts as 

 to seasonal changes of plumage, which some have hesitated to 

 believe in, are proved by actual experience ; several differences 

 in the colouring of soft parts are indicated ; with many other 

 details of importance. 



A. G. B. 



Zooi. Mh ser. vol. IV., February. 1900. & 



