80 THE REV. J. O. WOOD. 



numerous to mention. And, conspicuous among all, 

 hung two genuine Eton birches, which had been sur- 

 reptitiously carried away beneath the clothing of an 

 unsuspected visitor. Before the book was finished the 

 collection had perhaps but two equals in Great Britain 

 that at the British Museum, and the famous " Christy >r 

 collection. A very large proportion of the illustrations 

 in the Natural History were drawn from the objects 

 which it contained, and at last it became evident enough 

 that, if many more additions were made to it, the walls 

 of the entire house would hardly afford sufficient surface 

 for its display. After the book was finished, however, 

 and its work was done, my father practically ceased to 

 enlarge it, and, a very few years afterwards, the collec- 

 tion was broken up and sold. 



Heavy as was the labour thrown upon him, however, 

 by the preparation of the " Natural History of Man, s> 

 and the necessity for sending in monthly a prescribed 

 quantity of manuscript upon a prescribed day, my father 

 did not at all appear to consider that his energies were 

 wholly occupied, and actually entered into arrangements 

 for the simultaneous publication of "Bible Animals" 

 upon a similar principle. The first of the monthly 

 numbers of the new work appeared in 1869, and thus 

 for many consecutive months a double quota of manu- 

 script had regularly to be sent in, a double quantity of 

 proofs revised, and a double number of artists' illustra- 

 tions to be superintended and corrected. 



Only a man of the strongest constitution could have 

 performed the work which the preparation of these two 



