180 COXTKIBUTORS TO THE FIRST SERIES OF ^ THE IBIs/ 



at least — but that b\' no means the best — Tnay now be seen 

 in the Natural History Museum in Cromwell Road^ it 

 having been bequeathed to tlie Trustees by Mr. Hewitson, 

 who had become its possessor. 



On the occasion of the International Exhibition o£ 1862, 

 Hancock made a similar attempt to illustrate life in death ; 

 but, as noticed at the time ('Ibis/ 1862^ p. 283), the 

 Commissioners refused him the space he required^ and the 

 beautiful groups he had prepared remained for a long while 

 known only to his private friends. They have now been 

 placed in the Newcastle Museum *, for which he in his later 

 years unceasingly laboured, restoring, with that patient skill 

 of which he was so great a master, many of its historic speci- 

 mens that had come from the Allan and Tunstall collections 

 more than a century ago, and adding others from his own 

 stores set up witli a regard to truth and feeling that more 

 than one much-vaunted assemblage of mounted groups fails 

 to approach. Indeed, of Hancock's performances it may be 

 said that, unequal as they may be, the worst of them never 

 looks like a stuffed bird — the attitude of some may be un- 

 graceful or possibly forced, but life is always there. In 1874 

 Hancock brought out his most considerable literary work, 

 and that by which he will always be remembered, the ' Cata- 

 logue of the Birds of Northumberland and Durham.' It is 

 an unpretentious, sound piece of work ; its statements as to 

 fact may, Ave believe, be always trusted, and though assent 

 may be reserved in regard to some of its author's opinions 

 they are always worthy of attention as coming from a 

 very original mind. Several notices also from his pen occur 

 in 'The Ibis' (1862-1886). 



It may here be remarked that in the ' Bibliographia Zoo- 

 logise,' compiled by Agassiz and edited by Strickland for the 



* The group of Swans attacked by an Eagle is said to have given 

 Landseer the idea of one of his celebrated pictures ; but there is this 

 difference between the work of the two artists— the scene executed by 

 Hancock, tliough fanciful, is possible, that painted by Landseer is 

 impossible. 



