336 Lord Walclen on the lute Colonel Tickell's 



XXXII. — Notes on the late Colonel Tickell's manuscript Work 

 entitled "Illustrations of Indian Ornithology." By Arthur, 

 Viscount Walden. 



(Plates IX., X.) 



Among the books of the Zoological Society's library is to be 

 found the manuscript work alluded to. It was presented to 

 the Society by the late Colonel Tickell in 1874^, failing 

 health and obliterated sight having prevented him from car- 

 rying out the cherished object of his later years, its publication. 

 On Colonel TickclFs career as an ornithologist it is not my 

 intention now to enter. An obituary by an old friend was 

 published last yearf. Suffice it to say that he belonged to 

 that band of zoologists who, more than forty years ago, com- 

 menced in India the then much neglected study of natural 

 history, and who worshipped as simple and single-minded de- 

 votees in the temple of nature, and not for their own self- 

 glorification. Beyond a couple or so of papers J, I am not 

 aware that he published in any scientific periodical any ob- 

 servations on birds. His collections were generally sent to 

 Blyth at Calcutta, some of the examples with MS. titles at- 

 tached, under which that able zoologist usually made them 

 known in the pages of the ' Proceedings ' of the Asiatic So- 

 ciety of Bengal §. Being gifted with a ready pencil and a 

 facile brush, Colonel Tickell, in most instances, made coloured 

 drawings of the animals he secured ; and in the course of time 

 he had accumulated many drawings, togetli^r with copious 

 notes relating to the species he had captured or observed. 

 Some of his first efforts were lost, including several sketches 

 without which, it is to be feared, one or two of his earlier 

 species must remain unidentified. A part of the materials he 

 brought to England were thrown together and form the work 



* P. Z. S. 1874, p. G67. 



t ' Field ' newspaper, June 1875. 



I J. A. S. B. 1833, pp. 569-583, 1859, pp. 448-456; Ibis, 1864, pp. 173- 

 182. His later articles in the ' Field,' subscribed with the pseudonym 

 of " Ornithognomon,"' are probably well known to the readers of the 

 ' Field.' 



§ Not always. Conf. Tickell, Ibis 1863, p. 111. 



