NOTICES OF ESSEX ORNITHOLOGISTS. 31 



on the Blackvvater, where for many years he kept his yacht. He 

 had one of the biggest punt guns used in the district, with a 

 special arrangement of his own for loading, and was recognised by 

 common consent as one of the best punt-gunners on tlie coast. To 

 the poor homeless vagabonds, he was generous almost to a fault ; but 

 he was kind, just, and generous to all, and he has left his stainless 

 and honourable life as an example to his children and to all who knew 

 him. Colonel Russell's letters to the Times, Field, Essex Chro?iick 

 and other papers, in reference to wild-fowl and to the real character of 

 the Sparrow, as compared with that of the Martin, will be well remem- 

 bered. He also wrote, " Notes on Common Birds in my Garden," 

 in the Field {2g. June and Aug., 1878.). He took a prominent part 

 in getting the close-time for wild-fowl altered, and was chairman of 

 the committee on this subject appointed by the Court of Quarter Ses- 

 sion. He advocated a close-time for all animals that required 

 protection. At Quarter Sessions, where at one time he attended 

 pretty regularly, he was very popular, and was always listened to with 

 respect on the subjects he had made his own, especially that of a 

 close-time for wild-fowl. 



The following notice appeared in the Fssex Naturalist (50. i. 

 140) :— 



" Colonel Russell was a very good chemist, and was most inventive and neat, 

 fingered, always ready with contrivances for effecting any purpose in hand. In 

 1859, he patented an invention for the improvement of marine engines, chiefly 

 with a view to the economy of fuel ; and among other scientific work he studied 

 photography with considerable success, being awarded a gold medal at the Paris 

 Exhibition, and a bronze one at Dublin, for his discovery of the tannin process in 

 dry plate photography.* Tlie open-air study of nature, as a sportsman and wild- 

 fowler, was his greatest delight, and aroused all the enthusiasm of his character ; 

 his knowledge of birds, their habits and feeding-grounds, was most extensive and 

 accurate, far more so than his written notes ever expressed. 



" The company of congenial listeners called forth from the stores of Colonel 

 Russell's memory a remarkable flow of capitally-expressed narrative and anecdote, 

 and he has been known to talk continuously for four hours without in the least 

 repeating himself ! A well-known Essex wild-fowler once said, ' He was a mar- 

 vellous man ; I believe he remembered distinctly every shot he had ever fired, and 

 they were thousands.' Even in the study, his ruling passion was manifest, his 

 favourite literature being books of travel and sport. He collected birds in America 

 and South Africa. The Kafirs had a great respect for ' the Whitebeard's ' skill 

 as a shot, and it is related that he astonished them once by patiently skinning a 

 Black Eagle that had become so ' high ' that even they were repulsed. He was 

 a great advocate for protecting birds and animals, and gave important evidence 

 before the Wild Bird Commission, taking a prominent part in the alteration of the 

 close-time, and was the chairman of the committee on this subject appointed by 



* On Nov. 24, 1888, Professor Meldola, F.R.S., read before the Essex Field Club a paper on 

 Col. Russell's contributions to photography, which were of considerable importance. 



