NOTICES OF ESSEX ORNITHOLOGISTS. 27 



"The extraordinary success I have had with my spider nets will afford ycu 

 much amusement. I have taken all the Warblers except the Wood Wren, the 

 Grasshopper vVarbler, and the Dartford Warbler ; also Kingfishers, Rock Larks, 

 and an endless number of other birds, and I have not the least doubt but I 

 could take any birds except those which are constantly at the tops of high trees." 



The net seems to have been made of the finest knitting silk, with 

 a mesh small enough to take the Warblers. This size seems to have 

 been strong enough to take Blackbirds, though the Doctor evidently 

 had a larger net for the purpose, for he mentions having accidentally 

 taken three Sparrow-hawks when after Blackbirds. Mr. Hoy and 

 Mr. Savill have, he says, each taken one. He also enters at 

 considerable length upon his method of bird-stuffing and says : 

 " I stuff my birds upon plans which I have myself invented." An 

 obituary notice of Dr. MacLean appeared in the Efifoniologist (vol. 

 iv, p. 357)- 



PARSONS, Christopher,* the only child of Chris- 

 topher and Lucy Parsons, of The Lawn, Southchurch, was born 

 in 1807. He was brought up to farming, and in 1835 he, took 

 Bowater's Farm, East Tilbury, but removed in 1842 to North 

 Shoebury Hall Farm, where he resided until within a few years of 

 his death. He then again removed to The Lawn, Southchurch, 

 where he died in 1883. He must very early have become interested 

 \n Natural History and sport, for his Game-book commences in 1822, 

 when he was only 15. In the following year, when he was at school 

 at Poplar House Academy, kept by a Mr. Stock, he was in corre- 

 spondence about works on Natural History with one Robert Castle, a 

 naturalist, as shown by a letter which still exists. His interest in 

 science was deep and to some advantage, for he afterwards became 

 extremely proficient as an ornithologist, botanist, entomologist, and 

 meteorologist. In 1828 he spent some months in London learning 

 to stuff birds, &c., after which he remained at home, assisting in the 

 work of the farm and "following his bent." His home-life about 

 this time seems to have been varied by sporting trips and by visits to 

 France, Scotland, the Fen-district and the North of England, as well 



* Christopher Parsons, the subject of this notice, was at least the sixth and the last member of 

 his family who bore that name. His father, Christopher, who died in 1869, was son of a 

 Christopher Parsons, who died April 21, 1805, aged 67, and who was the son of another 

 Christopher Parsons, who died in 1787, aged 88, and who was the grandson of yet another 

 Christopher Parsons, who died on March 22, 1713. He was overseer of Southchurch in 1682, and 

 churchwarden in 1689. There was a Christopher Parsons, junior, who held Samuels in 1690, and 

 Palgraves in 694. His last signature was at Southchurch in 1700. The Parsons family long 

 resided at Thorp Hall, Southchurch, and the Shore House, Shoebury. For the following 

 information I am indebted to Mr. E. A. Fitch. 



