Enormous flocks of Starlings have this year taken possession of and made their ne9ts in the huge chimneys of Buckingham Palace, and these in great numbers forage for their food in the private grounds of the palace.—Daily Chronicle, May 9 th.
The announcement of the untimely death of Dr. C. Herbert Hurst, formerly on the staff of the Zoological Department of the Owens College, will be received with general regret. We take the following obituary notice from the columns of 'Nature':—"Dr. Hurst was an alumnus of the Manchester Grammar School, and studied biology under Professor Huxley with conspicuous success. After some experience as a resident science master in a boys' school he entered the Owens College as a student in 1881, and in January, 1883, was appointed to the post of Demonstrator and Assistant Lecturer in Zoology under the late Professor Milnes Marshall. For eleven years he filled this office with conspicuous diligence and success, and not only earned the grateful recollection of several generations of students of the College, but also laid under obligation a much wider circle of zoologists by his share in the production of the 'Text-book of Practical Zoology,' which has made the names of Marshall and Hurst familiar in every biological laboratory, not only in this country but in the world. In 1889 he took advantage of a prolonged leave of absence, granted by the College authorities, to pursue his studies at the University of Leipzig, where he carried out a valuable investigation into the life-history of the Gnat (Culex), for which he was awarded the degree of Ph.D. Latterly he had undertaken what he termed ' a systematic criticism of biological theory,' in the course of which he published discussions on 'The Nature of Heredity,' 'Evolution and Heredity,' 'The Recapitulation Theory,' and other kindred topics. In these essays certain modern views were subjected to trenchant and unsparing criticism, for Dr. Hurst was a keen controversial writer, and never hesitated to express himself clearly and forcibly, even at the risk of obloquy and unpopularity. His last writings were, 'The Structure and Habits of Archæopteryx,' and 'A New Theory of Hearing.' In 1895 Dr. Hurst left the Owens College to fill a similar position in the Royal College of Science, Dublin. His premature death deprives Zoology of a zealous and upright worker who was most esteemed by those who knew him best."
To compass the death of an Elephant is no light matter. Sportsmen by the head-shot now no longer pursue the slow, costly, and painful method described by Gordon Cumming. Recently, an Elephant contained in "Barnum and Bailey's Show," which had been visiting Liverpool,
