CONTRIBUTORS TO THE FIRST SERIES OF ^ THE IBIs/ 179 



making observations on such birds as came in his way, and 

 though comparatively few of these have seen the light, time 

 has in most cases proved their accuracy. 



Another of his discoveries — as such it really was, for though 

 YarrelFs claim to priority is undoubted, no publication thereof 

 had been made, and the fact was wholly unknown to Hancock 

 — was the specific distinctness of Cygnus beivicki. As un- 

 fortunately often liappens in such cases, some unpleasantness 

 arose out of the circumstances. Yarrell, partly through 

 a proper exercise of caution, and not suspecting that anyone 

 else was likely to meet with specimens of his newly-found 

 Swan, deferred its description until after it had come to the 

 notice of the northern ornithologists, Wingate and Hancock ; 

 but it is especially due to the acumen of the latter that the 

 specific validit}^ of Bewick's Swan was recognised. Whether 

 tidings of the fact reached Yarrell, and prompted him to 

 make known the information he had possessed for some four 

 or five years, matters little. If it were so, he was certainly 

 justifying his rights ; but those who are curious in such trivial 

 matters may read the charge and defence in the ^Philosophical 

 Magazine' (new ser. viii. pp. 128-130 and 167-169). The 

 whole incident is much to be regretted, and in nothing more 

 than that Hancock thence conceived the ornithologists of the 

 south of England to be jealous of him — an idea, we are sure, 

 that was utterly mistaken, as was shown by the welcome 

 they gave to his handiwork. 



For many years Hancock had been attempting to raise 

 '' taxidermy " to an art. He knew how a bird should look, 

 and having the eye had also the hand of an artist, so that he 

 could mount a dried skin and endue it with the spirit of life. 

 Other men doubtless may have tried to do the like, but for 

 the lack of the knowledge that comes of observation and the 

 delicacy of manipulation that seeais to be inborn, no one 

 except perhaps Mr. Waterton had succeeded. There are still 

 some amongst us that remember with pleasure Hancock's 

 contributions to the Great Exhibition of 1851, where, placed 

 in the central transept, they were always surrounded by 

 admirers, and at the end went unrewarded ! One of them 



