Bird Notes and News 



37 



"Nature in Downland " (1900), "Birds 

 and Man" (1901), "Hampshire Days" 

 (1903), "A Little Boy Lost" (1905), 

 "The Land's End" (1908), "Afoot in 

 England" (1909), "A Shepherd's Life" 

 (1910), "Adventures among Birds" 

 (1913), "The Book of a Naturahst " 

 (1918), "Birds in Town and Village" 

 (1919), "Dead Man's Plack" and "An 

 Old Thorn " (1920), and "A Traveller in 

 Little Things " (1921). The two sumptu- 

 ous volumes of " The Birds of La Plata " 

 (1920) contain Mr. Hudson's portion of 

 " Argentine Ornithology," omitting Dr. 

 Sclater's. In the preface to this work he 

 recalls a letter received from a brother in 

 Argentina, in 1899, urging him to return 

 to his native country and dedicate his 

 whole time to the observation of its 

 fauna. "I read the letter," writes Mr, 

 Hudson, "with a pang, feehng that his 

 judgment was right; but the message 

 came too late. I had already made my 

 choice." And he adds that his choice was 

 probably the wrong one. For his own 

 sake, perhaps. But to the lover of 

 England's birds, and England's country, 

 and England's hterature, the saying is a 

 hard one. 



In these later years pubhshers in 

 England and the United States competed 

 for his books ; reviewers pelted him with 

 ecstatic eulogy. In 1901 he had been 

 awarded a Civil List Pension of £150 

 " in recognition of the originality of his 

 writings on natural history." It meant 

 much to him then. In 1921 he resigned 

 it on the ground that he was no longer 

 in need of the money. Alone in the world, 

 and exceedingly simple in tastes and 

 habits, he had by this time little use for 

 panegyric and its results. 



Something his books owed no doubt 

 to their memories of two continents. 

 From the boundless spaces of Argentina, 

 with its untilled pampas and half-wild 

 gauchos, he passed to the green meadows 

 and old-time villages of England, always 

 able to recall not only the brilliant bird 



life^ he had first known, but the habits 

 and language of each species ; and to 

 contrast them with the sombre-coated 

 songsters of his new home. The English 

 downland, the little English hamlet, 

 the English lanes and woodlands, the 

 Enghsh cottagers, won his heart, as 

 summer after summer he rambled in 

 quiet ways over many a county, becoming 

 familiar with hundreds of small villages 

 in a way few English men can equal. 

 The New Forest, the Sussex Downs, 

 Wiltshire byeways and sheepfolds, 

 Cornish rocks and Norfolk chffs — he 

 knew and made himself a part of all, 

 just as whatever bird he had most newly 

 seen and watched became, as it seemed, 

 his favourite bird, and the most lovely. 

 And whether it was the elusive furze- 

 wren on a Surrey common, the jays of 

 Savernake, the jackdaws of Penzance, 

 the wood-wrens of Wells in Somerset, 

 or the wild geese of Wells-next-the-Sea ; 

 or a shepherd's dog, or a cow in an old 

 lane, or a grasshopper or a dragonfly ; 

 or a ribbon of blue vernal squills, a 

 patch of chequered fritillaries, or a 

 yellow mimulus by the river ; he could 

 see and write of each and aU with a charm 

 that made it for the moment the one 

 thing of interest for himself and liis 

 readers. It was all Life, the abounding 

 hfe of a world made very good. But 

 woven in with the golden threads was 

 a weft of the deepest sadness, the 

 consciousness of Death. 



The funeral took place on August 

 22nd, at Broadwater Cemetery, near 

 Worthing, where Mrs. Hudson, who 

 lived for many years of invahdism at 

 Worthing, was buried last year, and 

 where Richard Jefferies also lies. The 

 service was of the simplest ; the Rev. 

 S. V. F. Griffiths officiated; and only a 

 smaU gathering of old friends was present. 

 The Society was represented by ^Ir. 

 F. E. Lemon, Hon. Secretary, Mr. Ernest 

 Bell, Mr. J. Rudge Harding and Miss 



Gardiner. 



L. G. 



