FRANCIS MARION WESTON was once described as the dean of Gulf Coast ornithologists. He was indeed greatly beloved and highly respected by all who knew him, and, as a result, he exerted a profound influence on many ornithologists with whom he came in contact. He was particularly known for his passion for meticulous accuracy and complete verification of field identifications. He insisted upon such high standards that he was one of the leaders of a generation of nonprofessional observers who did much to raise the quality of reporting to its present level. The fifty-three years of his life spent in residence at Pensacola, F-lorida, comprised a period of study that began when the birdlife of much of the northern gulf coast was poorly known. Weston was born in Charleston, South Carolina, on 5 December 1887, the eldest of four children of John Tucker Weston and Eliza Ladson Webb Weston. He passed away in Pensacola on 3 April 1969. He is survived by two married daughters, Mrs. Laurie Delareuelle of Walnut Creek, California, and Mrs. Geneva Wagner of Jackson, Mississippi. His education was in the schools of Charleston, including the College of Charleston from which he graduated with the Bachelor of Science degree in June 1907. In the winter of 1907-08 he taught in a country school near Mt. Pleasant and from then until January 1914 he acted as a parttime evening assistant in the Charleston Museum. Beginning in 1908 and continuing until 1951, he worked as a Civil Service draftsman, first in the Charleston Navy Yard, and from February 1914 through January 1916 in the Bureau of Lighthouses in Washington, D.C. In February 1916, he was transferred to the Pensacola Naval Air Station, where he served until his retirement. During his early years his interest in wildlife was fostered by his father, with whom he went on long and frequent bicycle trips into the countryside around Charleston. Later, when in college, he made the acquaintance of Herbert Ravenal Sass, who introduced him to bird study and who was Weston's constant mentor and friend until the time of his death in 1958. In the winter that Weston taught school at Mt. Pleasant he met the veteran South Carolina ornithologist Arthur T. Wayne and spent much of his spare time in the field with him. During his two years in Washington, 1914-16, he became acquainted with many of the leading ornithologists of the day, including Welles W. Cooke, Edgar A. Mearns, and J. H. Riley. At Cooke's request he began to make regular reports on birds observed to what was then known as the Bureau of Biological