38 THE BIRDS OF ESSEX. 



In the year 1838 there appeared in the Essex Literary Journal 

 (19.3) an account of a visit to the museum, together with the report 

 of a lecture on geology, three hours long, by Professor Sedgwick on 

 the occasion of the re-opening for a new session. An admirable 

 history and description of the museum also appeared in Life-Lore 

 for November, 1888. The Rev. C. G. Green states {Recollec- 

 tions of Sfort atid Natural LListory, p. 5) that his earliest reminis- 

 cences of Natural History are associated with this Museum.* 



The Salter Collection, the property of Dr. J. H. Salter, ot 

 D'Arcy House, ToUeshunt D'Arcy, is, I believe, of interest, contain- 

 ing many specimens (especially of the Falconidae) shot by Dr. Salter 

 himself on the adjoining marshes ; but I have not yet seen it. 



The Smoothy Collection, the property of Mr. Charles 

 Smoothy, of Danbury, is at present deposited in the Chelmsford 

 Museum, but, though a good series, it does not contain many Essex 

 specimens of special interest. 



The Sudbury Museum Collection was dispersed by sale 

 in 1872, some of the specimens being purchased for the Walden 

 Museum, the rest being lost sight of. Of the museum, Mr. T. B. 

 Hall of Coggeshall gave in 1843 ^ brief account (23.341) in the 

 Zoologist, from which it appears that it had been opened in the be- 

 ginning of the previous year, a building having been erected on pur- 

 pose for it in Friar's Street. At that time it contained 310 specimens 

 of British birds (nearly 170 species) and the eggs of 160 species, 

 beside numerous other collections, including the following specimens : 

 an Otter (near Sudbury), a black Hare (Henny), pair of Curlews 

 (Sudbury), pair of Arctic Terns (Friar's Meadow, Sudbury), Sec. &c. 

 Canon Babington says (46.7) : " The collections of all sorts are now 

 dispersed. The sale catalogue (June 4th, 1872), of which I possess 

 a copy, enumerates their contents, but not in a very satisfactory man- 

 ner." Elsewhere (46.6) he says that the localities of the specimens 

 of birds were not recorded and adds "after many inquiries, I have 

 only been able to make out that, though a great part of them were 

 obtained about Sudbury, the stations of a very few only of the speci- 

 mens are known, some of which [presumably the birds] are now in 

 my possession." 



wooden framework. The stuffing ot so large an animal was, in those daj'S, a great accomplish- 

 ment. The elephant was exhibited in the Great Exhibition of 1851, where it excited consider- 

 able interest, and was caricatured by Leech in the pages of Ptmch. 



* It may here be stated that the Museum is very deeply indebted to the late Mr. George Stacey 

 Gibson, who, shortly before his death in 1883, devoted a large amount both of time and of money 

 to its reorganisation. 



