272 TEE ZOOLOGIST. 



very interesting species was described, it will be remembered, in ' The 

 Zoologist ' for last year by Mr. J. G. Millais. With the exception of 

 the Skomer Bank Vole, all the known species of English Voles are 

 now represented in the Zoological Gardens. 



The important addition to the collection of Birds, mentioned above, 

 is a series of eleven Kiwis, representing the North Island race of the 

 original species, namely, Apteryx australis mantelli, or Mantell's Kiwi. 

 The Society has to thank Lord Ranfurly, the Government of New 

 Zealand, and Mr. H. C. Wilkie, F.Z.S., for the donation, and the latter 

 also for his great care of the birds upon the long voyage home. It is 

 certain that no such series of Kiwis has ever previously been exhibited 

 in any European menagerie. Antipodean birds usually do well in 

 England. Hence it is to be hoped that this morphologically isolated 

 type will be for many years represented in the Gardens. 



It is not often that that remarkable arachnid Galeodes is seen 

 alive in England. In the Insect House, however, there is now a 

 female of the Soudanese and Egyptian species, Galeodes lucasii, pre- 

 sented by Mr. W. G. Percival. In Egypt this animal is commonly 

 known as the Tarantula, from its ferocious and spider-like aspect, and 

 both in that country, in India, and South Africa fights between 

 Galeodes and Scorpions are a common pastime of soldiers. 



R. I. P. 



OBITUARY. 



William Thomas Blanford. 



Zoologists and geologists will feel an absolutely personal regret at 

 the loss of Dr. Blanford, who passed away on June 23rd, in his seventy- 

 third year, at Bedford Gardens, Campden Hill. 



He was born on Oct. 7th, 1832, at 27, Bouverie Street, Whitefriars, 

 in the city of London, the house and manufactory adjoining it belong- 

 ing to his father, William Blanford, and which premises now form part 

 of the printing and publishing offices of the ' Daily News.' Educated 

 privately at Brighton, he was sent to Paris at the age of fourteen, where 

 he remained till March, 1848, and then passed two years with a mercan- 

 tile house at Civita Vecchia, the head of that firm being an old friend of 

 his father's. Returning to England in 1851 he joined his father's 

 business, but soon detected his true vocation, and entered the Labora- 

 tory of the Royal School of Mines under Lyon Playfair hi 1852, and 

 matriculated in the autumn of that year. After leaving the School of 



