134 BIRD HAUNTS AND NATURE MEMORIES 



One of the best type, warehouseman in a well-known 

 Manchester house, made a well-earned name for himself 

 as an all-round, reliable naturalist; he saved and retired, 

 ending his days in the enjoyment of the hobby of his life. 

 He stuffed birds in his spare time, and very well he did 

 them. Thoroughly trustworthy and honest, he hated 

 anything that savoured of fraud or sham ; he made many 

 life friends and many bitter enemies by his outspoken 

 exposure of deceit in his brother naturalists. Greedy 

 collectors, by no means an extinct class, have only them- 

 selves to thank for much of the fraud which surrounds 

 the " identity " of specimens. A school of collectors and 

 taxidermists discovered that there was a market for 

 British or locally obtained specimens which could be 

 supplied by substituting specimens from abroad or from 

 other areas than those stated on the labels. Wild- fowl, 

 and often ornithological oddments, arrived from abroad 

 in the wholesale markets, and these were speedily snapped 

 up, and often shown to the collector " in the flesh " with 

 an entirely spurious local history. How many black 

 woodpeckers are preserved in museums or collections 

 as British ? This practice our honest warehouseman 

 exposed and frustrated, cutting off much illicit gain. It 

 was from such men as he that we learnt how skins of 

 ruffs were imported from Holland, mounted and sold 

 as locally obtained; how American skins were treated 

 in the same way to obtain the big prices for " British 

 killed " rarities. It is an old fraud; has it ended ? 



In suburban Liverpool lived one who in his day was 

 counted the great authority on all local natural history 

 matters; Liverpool scientific societies knew his name, 

 published his notes. He was past his four score years 

 when we visited him, and no doubt a failing memory 

 accounted for some of the strange " facts " he related. 

 As we entered his garden we were hailed by the screams 



