Obituary. 
369 
XII.— Obituary. 
Captain Shelley, Dr. A. B. Meyer, Mr. W. E. D. Scott, 
and Dr. Carl Parrot. 
Captain George Ernest Shelley. 
Captain Shelley, who died at Bournemouth on the 29th 
of November last after a long illness, was the youngest son 
of the late Mr. John Shelley, of Avington, Hants, the poet’s 
younger brother. He was born in 1840 and educated 
privately in England, after which (1852 to 1855) he studied 
in France at the Lycee de Versailles. In 1862 he attended 
courses of Lectures on Applied Mechanics by Professor 
Tyndall and on Geology by Professor Bamsay. In March 
of that year he was elected a Fellow of the Geological 
Society. 
Shelley joined the Grenadier Guards in 1863, but his 
gifted and scientific mind, and an aptitude for research, 
seemed to unfit him for the monotonous routine of a soldier’s 
life, and after a few years’ service in the Guards, he retired 
with the rank of Captain. A short time afterwards he was 
attached to a Commission sent out by the Government to 
South Africa, to initiate a geological survey. 
Captain Shelley would, in all probability, have made his 
mark as a geologist, if circumstances had not diverted his 
attention to Ornithology, which henceforward became the 
chief and absorbing interest of his life. In 1872 he published 
his f Handbook to the Birds of Egypt/ which was followed, 
in 1880, by his f Monograph of the Nectariniidse, or Family 
of Sun-birds.’ This was a handsome quarto volume, pro¬ 
fusely illustrated by the artist Keulemans. This work was 
the result of frequent expeditions to the African Continent 
and many years’ study of bird-life in Australia, Burma, and 
the Portuguese Settlements in Angola. When Captain 
Shelley first visited the Ethiopian region little was known 
about the avifauna of this “ metropolis of birds,” where, 
as he tells us, ce every bush resounds with their melody.” 
The materials dealt with in that sumptuous volume on the 
