NOTICES OF ESSEX ORNITHOLOGISTS. 9 



written and edited many books, including a Glossary of the Cleveland 

 Dialect, and a History of Cleveland. He has also written The JValks, 

 Talks, Travels, and Exploits of Two Schoolboys (1859), and other 

 popular works on Natural History, including the Nests and Eggs of 

 British Birds (36), a charming little book, which has gone through 

 several editions, and is still one of the most popular works on 

 ornithology in the English language ; few, if any, books have in 

 their day done more to popularise that science. A threepenny edition 

 of it appeared in 1885. It contains numerous reminiscences of his 

 early days, spent among the birds on the Essex saltings. The town 

 of Elmdon, described in Walks and Zh/X'i- (pp. 1-18), possesses con- 

 siderable local interest for Essex people, although it has no connec- 

 tion with the Essex village of that name. In writing the book, Mr. 

 Atkinson says in a letter to me : " I drew largely on my recollections 

 of Kelvedon and of my school life and exploits there, and some of 

 the scenery and places described, such as Docwra's Mill, Watery 

 Lane, and the Stream, certainly had a Kelvedon origin, as also had 

 the twelve daily coaches up to London, the flocks of geese along the 

 roads, the school ghost, the coaches full, inside and out, a little 

 before Christmas, with game, turkeys, &c., and many other scenes 

 and incidents all through the book ; but the moorland, and all that 

 pertains thereto — water-ouzels, trout-fishing, golden plover's nests, 

 and the like — have no connection whatever with Kelvedon." 

 Chapter xix., too, contains a graphic account of a walk on the 

 Essex Marshes, and of a day's wild-fowl shooting on the Main, round 

 the Wigboroughs and Mersea. 



In 1887 Mr. Atkinson received the honorary degree of D.C.L. 

 from the University of Durham, "in recognition of his services 

 in many branches of literature." He has filled several important 

 local offices, and is now engaged upon a volume of his Recollec- 

 tions. 



ATKINSON, Rev. John (1786 ?-i87o ?), was a son of 

 the Rev. Christopher Atkinson, fellow and tutor of Trinity Hall, 

 Cambridge, who was an excellent ornithologist. Some water colour 

 paintings of British Birds, done by him, and now in the possession 

 of the Rev. J. C. Atkinson, are described by the latter as being, he 

 imagines, " quite unequalled for beauty, delicacy of finish, and life- 

 likeness." He married a sister of Sir John Leycester, afterwards 

 Lord de Tabley. The Rev. John Atkinson became curate of Gold- 

 hanger about 1 8 10, and was afterwards curate of Great Wigborough, 

 Little Wigborough, Peldon, and elsewhere in Essex. He was, in the 



