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Sept., 1919 EDITORIAL NOTES AND NEWS -215 death of William Brewster, which occurred on July 11. Here was a man who was him- self a student of scholarly attainments; he made many contributions to the permanent literature of ornithology. And also, being a man of some means, he was able to, and did, during his lifetime, advance in a material way the interests of other workers and in- stitutions in this fiel?L Now, by his will, as With regard to Judge Ed Wall's article which appears elsewhere in this issue we fear the writer, in common with not a few other bird students, has an erroneous idea as to what constitutes a "record" in the annals of natural history. In our belief, not until publication, when made available to any dil- igent seeker for knowledge anywhere in the Fig. 45. MAJOR EDWARD A. GOLDMAN, NOW IN CHARGE, DIVISION OF BIOLOGICAL INVES- TIGATIONS, UNITED STATES BUREAU OF BIOLOGICAL SURVEY. we learn from the Boston Transcript, he leaves to the Museum of Comparative Zoolo- gy, Harvard University, all of his large and exceedingly valuable collection of birds, to the same institution an endowment fund of $60,000, to the American Ornithologists' Uni- on $2000, and to the Nuttall Ornithological Club $2000. There are many other bequests, but the above serve to show Brewster's deep devotion to the scientific study of birds. world, does any fact or set of facts reach the dignity of a true record. The facts Judge Wall now makes known, and which estab- lish the nesting of the Wilson Snipe in southern California, are immensely import- ant. But no one could possibly be held to account for ignorance of facts stored only in the memory or notebooks of one or a few persons.