70 FRANCIS ORPEN MORRIS 



of " The Birds " from beginning to end was engraved 

 with his own hand. The methods he employed in 

 his craft were as original as the man himself ; the 

 chief part of his knowledge he picked up by degrees 

 for himself, and to his own methods he always 

 adhered ; he was uninfluenced by others, and kept 

 his own counsel very closely ; he was seldom seen 

 outside his own premises, his garden being his only 

 recreation ground. Although he carried on such 

 a large business and his name was so well known, 

 there were many of his fellow-townsmen who had 

 never set eyes on him. His capacity for work was 

 enormous ; he was clever in his business, and most 

 courteous in manner. 



It was certainly remarkable that two such men 

 as the author and the producer of the " History of 

 British Birds" should happen to be then living 

 in two adjoining parishes in East Yorkshire, and 

 that the entire work connected with the issue of 

 the volumes should be carried out in so compara- 

 tively small and remote a town as DrifBeld. 



There can be no doubt that it was something of a 

 tax upon a clergyman's time and energies, especially 

 in so large a parish as Nafferton, to have to supply 

 material each month for such a treatise as " The 

 Birds." It took over seven years to complete the 

 work, four of these while the author was at Nafferton, 

 and the remainder after he removed to Nunburn- 

 holme. During the whole of that time neither 

 illness nor other cause hindered him from per- 

 forming month by month with regularity that part 



