76 FRANCIS ORPEN MORRIS 



fly like the Duck, in line, when moving from place 

 to place, but in broken order." Remarks such as 

 this prove him to have been a careful observer of 

 the habits of birds. He was as good an entomo- 

 logist as he was an ornithologist. 



These common tastes made the two schoolfellows 

 close and lifelong allies. There was no friend for 

 whom Francis Morris had a stronger affection than 

 he had for . Richard Alington. Many were the 

 letters that passed between the two while the " His- 

 tory of British Birds " was in course of publication, 

 and for years after its completion in fact, up to the 

 time of Mr. Alington's death. 



The author's own love for birds and frequent 

 observations of their ways and habits are continu- 

 ally, and as it were unconsciously, brought out in his 

 history of them. It is easy to see how truly his 

 heart was in what he wrote of his lifelong feathered 

 friends and daily companions. He had watched 

 the graceful flight of the Buzzard, and thus describes 

 it : " The slow sailing of this bird, as I have thus 

 seen it, is very striking ; the movement of its wings 

 is hardly perceptible, but onward it steadily wends 

 its way. You can scarcely take your eyes off it, but 

 follow it with a gaze as steady as its own flight, until 

 ' by degrees beautifully less ' it leaves you, glad to 

 rest your eyeballs, and if you look again for it you 

 look in vain." When, again, from his own garden 

 he so often loved to watch the well-known move- 

 ments of the common Flycatcher as it darted off in 

 quest of its tiny prey, you seem to see his strong 



