X MEMOIR OF WILLIAM YARRELL. 



same healthful exercise led him also frequently into 

 other localities. His tastes, says one of his friends, were 

 those of a Londoner, whom the rus in urbe suited better, 

 perhaps, than the unmixed country. They were those 

 of Izaac Walton, citizen and angler, rather than those 

 of the full and perfect yeoman. 



These amusements of his earlier life led to his ac- 

 quiring an intimate knowledge of the habits of our 

 native birds and fishes, their food and migrations, his 

 observation of the objects that engaged his attention 

 being as accurate as it was keen. They were not, how- 

 ever, the only occupations in which he sought relief from 

 the monotony of business, for in 1817 he studied Che- 

 mistry at the Royal Institution. Before he attained 

 middle life he engaged in the systematic study of 

 Zoology, and pursuing it in the intervals of business 

 with his accustomed application, he gradually gave up 

 field sports, and it is believed that for thirty years before 

 his death he handled neither rod nor gun. 



In 1823 he commenced noting the appearance of 

 strange and rare birds, and in 1825 he lent his aid to 

 Bewick by sending him scarce British birds to figure. 

 He also presented a collection of the tracheae of water- 

 birds to the Royal College of Surgeons. His own 

 museum at this time contained a series of British Birds 

 and their eggs, and he now cultivated the society of 

 scientific men, among whom he had made the acquaint- 

 ance of Sir William Jardine, Bart., and P. J. Selby, 

 Esq., of Twizel House, who were then engaged in pub- 

 lishing their respective works on British Ornithology. 

 In November of the same year he was admitted a Fellow 

 of the Linnean Society, and in 1826 he became one of 

 the original members or founders of the Zoological 

 Society. Next year he was chosen to be one of the 



