Obituaries



333



“ I send you some copy which may be useful. Another failure was with

these beautiful little Indian Porphyrios. They were out all the winter, as

it was mild I did not trouble. Then I got laid up and the frost came. When

I was about again I found one, the hen, had got all the toes of one foot frost¬

bitten, rendering mating difficult and resulting in four out of five eggs being

infertile ; they let the one chick die in trying to hatch out the other eggs.

I found it dead with the hind-quarters pecked about, they may have killed

it themselves. It was covered with black down, the beak whitish with curious

black stripes like a dog’s muzzle. Both birds incubated about twenty days.

They paired again but did not lay. They seemed quite harmless to small

birds and their nests.”



FRANK FINN, B.A.


We much regret to have to record the death, which took place on

1st October, of Mr. Frank Finn, who had been an Honorary Member

of our Society for many years, and edited this Magazine in 1909.

Born in 1868 he had devoted his life to the study of Natural History.

In 1892 he took part in a collecting expedition to East Africa, and in

1894 was appointed Assistant Superintendent of the Indian Museum,

Calcutta. In the following year he became Deputy Superintendent

of that Museum, a post he retained until 1903. He edited the Zoologist

from 1915 to 1916. He was the author of a number of popular natural

history books as well as scientific papers. Among the former may be

mentioned Fancy Waterfowl (1900) ; Fancy Pheasants (1901) ; Birds

of Calcutta (1901) ; Ornithological and other Oddities (1907) ; Birds of

the Countryside (1907) ; Pets and How to Keep Them (1907) ; Wild

Beasts of the World (1908-9) ; Talks about Birds (1911) ; Wild Animals

of Yesterday and To-day (1913).


In recent years he had turned his attention to poetry and published

Circe's Worshippers and other Poems (1923) and The Masque of Birds

and other Poems (1926). In 1909, in conjunction with Mr. Douglas

Dewar, he published The Making of Species.



THE LATE WM. SHORE-BAILY


Mr. Shore-Baily, whose death was reported in the October number,

was a keen bird-lover from his early youth. At the age of 23 he went

to California where, in addition to duck-shooting, he had an opportunity



