Sir Walter Lawry Buller, K.C.M.G., F.R.S.

Abstract

SIR WALTER LAWRY BULLER, who died on July 19 at Pontdail Lodge, Hampshire, will be remembered long in the scientific world on account of his accurate and sumptuous works on the ornithology of New Zealand. He was a son of the Rev. James Buller, of Canterbury, in the Southern Island, and was born in 1838. He was proud of being a New Zealander, and passionately devoted to all that concerned Maoriland. At the age of twenty-four, and for ten years subsequently, he filled the post of Resident Magistrate and Native Commissioner and Judge of the Native Land Court of New Zealand. Few had so intimate a knowledge of the Maoris as he possessed. In 186, during a critical period of the Maori War, when Sir George Grey, the Governor, determined to take a personal hand in the contest in his endeavour “to quicken the slw dragging on of the military operations,"Sir,Valter served as a volunteer on his staff, and had the honour of being mentioned in despatches.