A TRTTE conception of the position Mr. R. J. Ussher occupied amongst Irish Naturalists, cannot be readily conveyed. Amongst Irish ornithologists he was facile princeps, the " Recording Angel," and had at his finger-ends all the records of the distribution, county by county, of the Irish avifauna. As a speliologist, he also took first place--and certainly no Irishman, and very few Englishmen, have spent the same amount of time and money in excavating caves. He was born in April, 1841, and died after a short illness on the 12th October, 1913, aged 72 years, and was buried in the family vault at Whitechureh, near his residence, on October 15th. His father, who married a daughter of Colonel Grant, at one time Governor of Upper Canada, was 63 years old at the time of R. J. Ussher's birth, so that the two lives extended over a period of 135 years. At the age of 12 he was sent to a school at Portarlington, and subsequently to Chester, and afterwards, being delicate, he was educated by a tutor, and entered Trinity College, Dublin, as a non-resident, but owing to ill-health, never took his degree, but passed successive winters travelling with his mother and a tutor in Spain, Italy, Corfu, etc. When twenty-five, he married the eldest daughter of the Rev. John Finlay, of Corkagh House, co. Dublin, and again travelled abroad for some years. He then devoted himself with energy to public duties in his own county, and became Deputy-Lieutenant, Grand Juror,