374 Revieiv of the Memoir 0/ Thomas Bewick. 



versation or by memoranda^ and "blotting out in his manu- 

 script what was not truth." 



Immediately after the publication of his ' Quadrupeds/ he 

 commenced his ' British Birds/ " I made up my mind," he 

 says, " to copy nothing from the works of others, but to stick to 

 nature as closely as I could ; and, for this purpose, being in- 

 vited by Mr. Constable, the then owner of WyclifFe, I visited 

 the extensive museum there, collected by the late Marmaduke 

 Tunstal, Esq., to make drawings of the birds." " As soon as I 

 arrived in Newcastle, I immediately began to engrave from the 

 drawings of the birds I had made at WyclifFe ; but I had not 

 been long thus engaged, till I found the very great difference 

 between preserved specimens and those from nature, — no regard 

 having been paid at that time to fix the former in their proper 

 attitudes, nor to place the different series of the feathers so as 

 to fall properly upon each other." " I was on this account 

 driven to wait for birds newly shot, or brought to me alive, and 

 in the intervals employed my time in designing and engraving 

 tail-pieces or vignettes." Some traces, however, of the Wycliffe 

 museum yet remain in this work ; among which, we may 

 mention the Great and Little Bustards and the Red-breasted 

 Goose, which Bewick had never the opportunity of seeing in 

 life. It may be interesting to note that the treasures of the 

 Wycliffe Museum were afterwards transferred to Newcastle, 

 where they may be seen in the Museum of the Literary and 

 Philosophical Society, having a double value, both as the originals 

 of Bewick's work and as being the oldest collection of stuffed 

 birds now in existence. Many of the specimens, still in good 

 preservation, were mounted at least one hundred years ago. 

 Stiff or distorted as they often are, they may yet bear com- 

 parison as works of art with many much more recent specimens 

 in the British Museum. 



The first volume of the ' British Birds ' was published in 

 1797, Mr. Beilby undertaking the letter-press, but being much 

 more assisted by Bewick than in the former work. At the 

 completion of the first volume they dissolved partnership, and 

 Bewick tells us he " was obliged from necessity, not choice, to 

 commence author." " As soon as each bird was finished on the 



