MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR, 



HENRY STEVENSON, F.L.S. 



In writing a memoir of the Rev. Richard Lubbock my late 

 friend, Henry Stevenson, truly remarked that " many authors have 

 acquired an established reputation not merely by the excellence 

 but by the multiplicity of their published works, whilst others 

 have attained a not less imperishable fame by one effort of genius 

 — a single contribution to some particular class of literature, 

 with which, for all time, they are personally identified." How 

 literally true this is with regard to himself will be cheerfully 

 admitted by all readers of his " Birds of Norfolk " — one of the 

 earliest of the recent county faunas which have since become so 

 numerous. It is as pre-eminent, so far as its author completed 

 his work, for the exact acquaintance with his subject it displays, 

 as for the skilful way in which the biography of each species 

 is just sufficiently treated, and the pleasing style in which the 

 results of his observations are recorded. Of Mr. Stevenson it 

 may truly be said that this single contribution to the ornithology 

 of his coimty has established for him a reputation which will last 

 so long as the study endures. 



The family of Stevenson settled in N'orwich in 1785, their 

 first representative here being William Stevenson, F.S.A., a 

 miniature painter, and pupil of Sir Joshua Reynolds, whose father, 

 the Rev. Seth Ellis Stevenson, was rector of Treswell in Notting- 

 hamshire. William Stevenson entered into partnership with the 

 proprietor of the " Norfolk Chronicle,'' an old-established county 

 Tory journal, which remained the property of the family until it 

 was formed into a Joint Stock Company in 1886. 



Seth William Stevenson, son of the above and father of the 

 author of the " Birds of Norfolk," like his predecessor, was a man 

 of distinguished literary talent, and published two books on 

 continental travels, which, early in the present century, possessed 



