IX. 



HISTORY OF THE COLLECTION. 



THE collection of birds bequeathed to the town of Brighton 

 by the late Mr. Edward Thomas Booth is unique in two- 

 respects. No bird which was not obtained by Mr. Booth 

 himself was allowed to form part of the collection, and every 

 case is so fitted up as to represent as far as possible the birds 

 in their natural condition with natural surroundings. 



Mr. Booth was born at Chalfont St. Giles, Buckingham- 

 shire, on the 2nd June, 1840. He was first sent to a private 

 school at Brighton, and afterwards to Harrow, where he 

 entered Dr. Vaughan's house in May, 1854, leaving in I860 

 to go up to Trinity College, Cambridge. His father, Mr. 

 Edward Booth, a gentleman of independent means at St. 

 Leonards, and his mother, one of the well-known family of 

 Beaumonts of Northumberland, left him as their only child 

 well supplied with means, which he used lavishly in following 

 his favourite pursuit of collecting birds. Kent, the bird 

 stuffer and barber at St. Leonards, first taught him how to- 

 stuff and case his birds, and from the very commencement 

 his ideal was to form a collection of birds set up in accord- 

 ance with their natural surroundings ; an ideal which he was 

 afterwards able to reduce into actual practice, thus being the 

 first to exhibit not merely a collection of stuffed birds, but 

 rather a true representation of bird life and haunts; an 

 example which the liberality of other lovers of birds has 

 enabled the authorities of the Natural History Museum at 

 South Kensington to worthily imitate. 



His early hunting grounds were the marshes near Eye, 

 which in those days were comparatively little disturbed. 

 But he soon extended his range to the Broads of Norfolk, 

 the Highlands and sea lochs of Scotland and other favourite 

 resorts of birds. Some idea of the closeness of his powers of 

 observation can be obtained by reading this volume ; but in 

 his so-called " Eough Notes," a work which he revelled in, 

 one is equally delighted with the freshness of the letterpress 

 and the wealth and beauty of the illustrations. In fact, he 



