100 
OBITUARY NOTICES. 
history may be drawn from the family of our late member ; his 
father, Mr. J. H. Gurney, suffered from a long and trying illness, 
a trial which was borne with great fortitude, and which was 
lightened to a great extent by his ability to continue the pursuit 
of his ornithological studies, in which it may be noted he had the 
assistance of his elder son, the present Mr. J. Id. Gurney, and the 
sympathy of his younger son, the subject of this memoir. 
W. H. B. 
John Cordeaux. 
In the death of Mr. John Cordeaux, practical ornithology has 
lost an earnest and capable worker, and general zoology, one of those 
“ all-round ” field-naturalists who are so fast disappearing before 
the modern specialist. 
Mr. Cordeaux was born at Foston in Leicestershire, of which parish 
his father was Rector, on February 27th, 1831, and early in life 
circumstances led to his taking up his abode at Great Cotes, 
Lincolnshire, where he resided until his death, which took place 
somewhat suddenly on the 1st of August, 1899, in his sixty -ninth 
year. An active out-door life gave him a thorough acquaintance 
with the birds and beasts of his adopted county, and he developed 
that happy combination of sportsman and naturalist, so often met 
with in the rural districts, whilst in the latter years of what had 
been a very active life, his more abundant leisure was devoted 
entirely to his favourite study. 
Mr. Cordeaux was elected a Member of our Society in 1876, 
and contributed to our ‘ Transactions ’ a valuable paper on the 
“Migration of the Stonechat” in 1877, also in 1878 a second 
paper entitled, “Some Recent Notes on the Avi-fauna of Lincoln- 
shire.” In 1872 he published the results of his long study of 
the ornithology of his neighbourhood in an admirable little book 
entitled, the ‘ Birds of the Humber District,’ a supplement to 
which appeared just before his death ; he contributed many papers 
to ‘The Ibis,’ ‘Zoologist,’ ‘Naturalist,’ ‘Field,’ and other similar 
journals, in some of which his descriptions of the peculiar features 
of the Lincolnshire Coast were very charming. In 1874 he paid 
his first visit to Herr Giitke in Heligoland, with whom he became 
a constant correspondent, and there is little doubt that the wonderful 
revelation he there witnesserl, and his subsequent intimacy with 
