IV 
death is nothing less than a national misfortune, as the 
first published volume of his ^ Birds of South Africa’ 
proves that whoever shall attempt to complete the work 
will have no easy task to rival the volume which our friend 
had written before his death. Colonel Northcott had 
made but one collection of birds in the Hinterland of the 
Gold Coast, and was full of euthusiam for future work. 
He was ordered off to South Africa on the outbreak of the 
Boer war, and had hardly reached his post on Lord IMethueu’s 
Staff, w'hen he was killed at the IModder River. 
» 
(Signed) R. BOWDLER SHARPE, 
Editor. 
October Is^, 1900. 
