Letters, Extracts, Notices, S^c. 127 



and finally the terrible famine of 1845 reduced him^ like so 

 many others dependent upon Irish landed property, almost 

 to penury. In the endurance of poverty he found much 

 solace through the outdoor study of natural history; and at 

 length, by means of the Encumbered Estates Act, prosperity 

 again dawned upon him, but at the cost of parting with the 

 family possessions. His first published notes appeared in 

 'The Zoologist' for 1843 ; and, in 1849, he brought out his 

 ' Ornithological Rambles in Sussex : with a Systematic Cata- 

 logue of the Birds of that County ' — the precursor of so many 

 works of similar local scope, few of which, however, have 

 equalled it as regards personal experience, while none have 

 surpassed it in spirit. A favourable notice, by his friend and 

 country-neighbour, the late Bishop Wilberforce, in the 

 ' Quarterly Review,^ not only helped the sale of this little 

 book, so that a second and a third edition appeared in 1850 

 and 1855 respectively, but encouraged the immediate publi- 

 cation of another — ' Game Birds and Wild Fowl ' — of no less 

 merit, though herein the author shows more of the sportsman 

 than the ornithologist. A scientific ornithologist, indeed, 

 Mr. Knox never professed to be ; but, so far from being one 

 of the many popular writers who because they know not 

 science aflJ'ect to despise its teachings, he held it in the utmost 

 respect ; and in the dark November days of 1858, when the 

 most sanguine were at times in doubt whether the required 

 score of members of the B.O.U. would ever be found, he 

 readily threw in his lot, took the greatest interest in the 

 project, and contributed, as all know, a pleasantly written 

 little paper to the first volume of this Journal (Ibis, 1859, 

 pp. 395-397). Mr. Knox's last work was ' Autumns on the 

 Spey,' published in 1872, and its frontispiece will give to 

 those who knew him not some idea of his personal appearance, 

 though to them no conception can be conveyed of his genial 

 nature, his fund of humour, and his varied accomplishments 

 — among which mention may be made of his power as a 

 draughtsman, though this may be judged of by the plates to the 

 now rare original edition of his first work. His collection of 

 birds, formed almost entirely in Sussex, he gave, on breaking 



