The Zoologist— November, 1873. 3775 



of splendid aquatic fireworks, the light proceeds from their own bodies. 

 I attribute this glorious illumination of the ocean to its smaller inhabitants, 

 whose pyrotechnic properties have been investigated and ascertained. — 

 Edward Newman.] 



Memoir of the late Thomas DLv. 



Since the brief notice in the ' Zoologist' for January last (S. S, 

 3380) of the death of this well-informed but most unassuming 

 naturalist, I have been desirous to embody in a brief memoir such 

 facts respecting his ornithological pursuits as our personal friend- 

 ship and the communications of his family have placed at ray 

 disposal. 



Mr. Dix was a native of Norfolk, having been born in 1830 at 

 Dickleburgh, near Harleston ; but his earliest associations were 

 connected with the "Breck" district to the south and west of the 

 county, his father having removed shortly after his son's birth to 

 Sturston, near Thetford, where, amongst other rural sounds that 

 attracted his notice as a child, the nocturnal cry of the stone curlew 

 {CEdicnemus crepitans) was indelibly impressed upon his mind, 

 from a something of dread connected with its melancholy wailings. 

 From Sturston, whilst he was still a boy, his family moved into 

 Essex, and though it would seem that his special taste for Orni- 

 thology did not develope itself till later in life, yet an acquaintance 

 formed thus early with Mr. Henry Doubleday, of Epping, and 

 subsequently with Mr. Edward Newman, the Editor of this journal, 

 proved unquestionably the first incentive to those studies which 

 had so great a charm for him in after years. To the influence, in 

 this respect, of his friend Mr. Doubleday he was ever ready to 

 testify, both how much he owed to and how highly he valued a 

 friendship that to the end of his short life was counted one of his 

 greatest privileges. With his tastes thus fostered, and directed 

 more particularly to one branch of Natural History, his out-door 

 occupations — always more or less connected with agricultural 

 operations — afforded every facility for studying the forms and 

 habits of his feathered favourites ; and with a power of observation 

 possessed by ievr, he thus acquired the store of ornithological facts 

 to which I have myself been so frequently indebted; yet which 

 none but his most intimate friends gave him credit for possessing, 

 through the reserve and diffidence that formed so marked a 

 characteristic of the man. 



