Bird Notes & News 



ISSUED QUARTERLY BY THE ROYAL SOCIETY 

 FOR THE PROTECTION OF BIRDS 



Vol. X.] 



AUTUMN, 1922. 



[No. 3. 



Mr. W. H. Hudson 



The greatest blow the Royal Society 

 for the Protection of Birds has sustained 

 befel it in the death, at 40, St. Luke's 

 Road, W., on August 18th, 1922, of 'Mr. 

 W. H. Hudson, F.Z.S. He had been in 

 faihng health for some years, suffering 

 from a heart complaint, and had spent 

 his winters in Cornwall to escape the 

 damp and fogs of London ; but there was 

 Httle sign of age about his tall upright 

 figure, his alert mind, and his untouched 

 faculties. His work occupied his atten- 

 tion almost to the last, as he was closely 

 engaged in the preparation of his forth- 

 coming work, " A Hind in Richmond 

 Park," involving the consideration of 

 migration, the musical sense in animals, 

 and other problems ; and the doctors' 

 reports afforded no special alarm to his 

 friends. On Monday the 14th, however, 

 he had a severe heart-attack ; there was 

 no rally as on previous occasions, and 

 early on Friday morning, saying he felt 

 drowsy and thought he could rest, he 

 fell asleep, and an hour or two later was 

 found to have passed away. 



IVIr. Hudson's eminence in the world 

 of literature, where he held a place 

 unique and unapproached, has not un- 

 naturally overpowered all else in the 

 tributes that have appeared in the news- 

 papers. The clarity and beauty of his 

 style, the close and patient observation 

 and understanding sympathy with which 

 he interpreted Nature, the striking in- 

 dividuahty and personal charm revealed 

 in liis treatment even of simple sights and 

 sounds and every-day adventures, have 



made themselves felt by every reader of 

 his works. Probably no writer has been 

 more deluged with letters from all over 

 the world, expressing not only gratitude 

 for the pleasure his correspondents have 

 gained from his books but also a longing 

 to come into direct touch with the man 

 whose spiritual fineness and insight 

 irradiated narrative and philosophy. 



" The death of IVIr. Hudson," remarks 

 the Times (x4.ugust 19th), "robs English 

 letters of a great figure and the hterature 

 of Nature of one of her most tuneful and 

 imaginative interpreters. He had much 

 of the passionate feehng for Nature which 

 is conventionally called Celtic. But so 

 far from his writings being marked by the 

 nebulousness which is often associated 

 with that Hterary adjective, it is dis- 

 tinguished by a Hmpid clearness. The 

 unusual combination of vigorous lucidity 

 with an almost mystical sensitiveness 

 towards Nature gives his writings a great 

 and lasting charm." They stand by 

 themselves, as far removed from the 

 artificial formality of the 18th century as 

 from the strivings and affectations of the 

 20th. In his own way, comments the 

 Morning Post, as exquisite a styhst as 

 Walter Pater and elected a member of the 

 British Academy as the highest distinction 

 that could be offered the literary artist, he 

 " was never guilty of a sloppy thought or 

 a slovenly sentence." 



But the loss to the Society is not alone 

 that of the greatest of Enghsh writers on 

 Nature in general and Bird Life in 

 particular. Mr. Hudson was intimately 



