1913-14,] Obituary Notices. 275 
form an additional attraction in these charming scenes. None but a 
skilful field -naturalist in whose mind the actual scenes had imprinted 
themselves could have designed these wonderful cases ; and Dr Gunther 
has often said that he gained as much real knowledge from Nature as from 
the splendid libraries at his command. 
His work in the other departments, viz. Mammals and Birds, was no less 
noteworthy. Every important and unimportant expedition consigned to 
him the fishes, amphibians, and reptiles, and occasionally the birds and 
mammals, and his conscientious treatment of them was uniformly the 
same, whilst his personal influence with the collectors was a constant 
source of rich additions to the National Museum. 
By Dr Gunther’s recommendation many valuable collections were added 
to the British Museum, such as the Gould Collection of Birds, the Oates 
Collection of the Birds of Pegu, Goodwin- Austin’s Indian Birds, the Sclater 
Collection of Birds, Capt. Shelley’s African Birds, the Saville-Kent Corals, 
the Baly Collection of Phytophaga, the Bates Collection of Heteromera, 
the Zeller Lepidoptera, the Keyserling Arachnida, the Moore Indian Lepido- 
ptera, the Pascoe Coleoptera, the Morelet Land and Freshwater Shells, the 
Atkinson Coleoptera and Rhynehota, the Grote North American Lepido- 
ptera, and the Parke Foraminifera. 
His great knowledge of zoology and ichthyology in particular, as 
well as his familiarity with the habits of animals, caused his services to be 
much sought after by Government Commissions and municipal bodies in 
regard to their fresh waters. Thus he reported on the pollution of the 
Thames and on that of several trout and salmon rivers. His evidence on 
the pollution of the Lower Thames was of great importance as well as 
conclusive, for his careful experiments proved the effects of such on fishes, 
and he indicated the length of time they would survive in various kinds of 
polluted water, e.g. sewage, effluents from gas-works, ink-works, etc. He 
went, for instance, minutely into the question, surveying the Lower Thames 
in a steam- vessel placed at his disposal by the Metropolitan Board of Works, 
and thus was enabled to give reliable advice to that body. His evidence 
in connection with the “ yellow fins” of the Allan Water was another 
example of his acuteness and caution in dealing with a contested point. 
Moreover, Dr Gunther was ever ready to encourage local collections of 
objects of natural history, and his gifts to provincial museums, of tame 
birds for private parks and aviaries, are gratefully remembered. One of 
his last donations was that to the University Museum of St Andrews, to 
which he presented about fifty exquisitely coloured birds, ranging from 
Reeve’s pheasant and the capercaillie to humming-birds, the group of the 
