I 9 2 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



COLOURED FIGURES OF THE BIRDS OF THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 

 Issued by Lord Lilford, F.Z.S., etc. (Concluding Notice.) 



It must be a matter for congratulation to the subscribers to the 

 late Lord Lilford's beautiful volumes who have lived to see the 

 conclusion of the work. The first number was issued in October 

 1885 ; the concluding in the spring of 1898. Lord Lilford's death 

 took place on i yth June 1896, on which date nearly all the remaining 

 plates were in an advanced state of preparation, and only the letter- 

 press remained to be issued. 



Friends who knew the gifted author were aware that his cheer- 

 fulness never left him, and that although worn with the increase of 

 bodily infirmities, and alas too often racked with pain, his interest in his 

 work never flagged, but remained fresh and perfect to the end of a 

 gentle and blameless life. 



The plates were intended to be the main feature of the work, and 

 undoubtedly the beautiful drawings by Thorburn, Keulemans, Lodge, 

 and Neale must ever remain a joy to the possessors, and a credit to 

 nineteenth-century art. The letterpress, eminently original, and 

 drawn from Lord Lilford's varied experiences, or that of friends on 

 whom he could rely, forms an admirable setting to the illustrations. 



The concluding number (xxxvi.) contains a welcome portrait 

 of Lord Lilford, title pages, list of subscribers, and a preface memoir, 

 written with much feeling, by his old friend Professor Newton, to 

 whom the work is dedicated with affection and respect. 



The letterpress of the four concluding numbers was supplied by 

 the late Osbert Salvin, F.R.S., and confined to a brief statement of 

 the claims of each species to be considered a British bird, and its 

 geographical distribution. And now he too has left us, and one more 

 illustrious ornithologist of that fast diminishing brotherhood who 

 were the original promoters and founders of the British Ornithologists 

 Union has passed to the other side. 



We cannot live back into the past, and memory alone can quicken 

 faces and voices once familiar ; but the life-work of our comrades 

 remains, and, like these beautiful volumes of Lord Lilford's, will abide 

 a treasure, a joy, and an example, when new generations of bird- 

 lovers seek out the paths of the old. J. C. 



