White Moss. 153 



famous Leverian Museum were brought together. While 

 a resident at Alkrington Hall (the ancient family seat) he 

 had the best aviary in the kingdom. In 1775 the museum 

 was removed to London, and ten years afterwards it was 

 sold by auction piecemeal. Sir Ashton's Manchester 

 town house was that one in "Lever's Row," now called 

 Piccadilly, which has for many years been the "White 

 Bear" hotel. When he died, in 1788, this house was 

 advertised as eligible for a ladies' school, being so far 

 away from the centre of business, and fields within a few 

 yards ! 



"White Moss," as before-mentioned (p. 60), has long 

 since been converted into farm-land, but in the days 

 referred to was still in its glory, dull to look at, no doubt, 

 but to the interrogator a local garden of Eden. Never 

 shall we forget the genial smile that rippled old George 

 Crozier's broad, round, rosy, white-fringed face as one 

 sunny afternoon in Whitsun-week, 1839, we stepped with 

 twenty or more under his guidance for the first time upon 

 the elastic peat, and beheld the andromeda and the pink 

 stars of the cranberry, these also for the first time. To 

 Crozier the pretty flowers were familiar as the hills; his 

 joy was to watch the delight they gave the juveniles. 

 Presently a man came up and asked if we were "looking 

 for brtds" A little puzzled at first by the strange inquiry, 

 the mystery was soon solved by his taking off his hat and 

 showing it stuck full of butterflies, the "birds," or in 

 his homely Anglo-Saxon, the "brids" caught during his 

 ramble. Among the more remarkable insects then to be 



