GIBSON, WILLIAM HAMILTON Ameri can illustrator, author and naturalist, was born in Sandy Hook (Conn.), on Oct. 5, 185o. The failure and (in 1868) death of his father, a New York broker, put an end to his studies in the Brook lyn Polytechnic institute and made it necessary for him to earn his own living. From the life insurance business, in Brooklyn, he soon turned to the study of natural history and illustration. He had sketched flowers and insects when he was only eight years old, had long been interested in botany and entomology, and had ac quired great skill in making wax flowers. His first drawings, of a technical character, were published in 187o. He rapidly became an expert illustrator and a remarkably able wood-engraver, while he also drew on stone with great success. He drew for many periodicals. He died of apoplexy brought on by overwork, on July 16, 1896, at Washington (Conn.). He was an expert photog rapher, and his drawings had a nearly photographic and almost microscopic accuracy of detail which slightly lessened their ar tistic value, as a poetic and sometimes humorous quality some what detracted from their scientific worth. Gibson was perfectly at home in black-and-white, but rarely (and feebly) used colours. He was a popular writer and lecturer on natural history; in his lecture on "Cross-Fertilization," he used ingenious charts and models.