In Memoriam: George Mitchell. 299 
Union. In spite of his years he was already an authority on 
the very ancient (and once noble) sport of falconry, and in 
every detail appertaining to his favourite birds and hobby. 
From his earliest ‘teens’ Young Mitchell dearly-loved a 
hawk or a falcon, and was rarely without one or more, which 
he delighted to train and to control. Later he became a mem- 
ber of the Old Hawk Club, and at his father’s house, The Up- 
wood, near Bingley, he usually had trained Peregrine Falcons, 
Merlins, Goshawks, etc., besides a trained falconer in velve- 
teens from the Old Hawk Club. At times, and for many 
years past a Falcor, Goshawk, or Buzzard would escape from 
his falcon-house, and for some time would be a target for all 
the local gunners, and would also have supplied an additional 
local ‘ record’ had we not known of its history. At such times 
he was called upon to pay accounts for numerous pigeons, 
chickens, etc., by local farmers and others. He more than 
once assured the writer that none of his captive birds had a 
tithe of the appetite that his escaped birds had ! 
Shortly after the outbreak of war, George Mitchell, together 
with his only brother, joined the Public Schools Officers’ 
Training Corps at Ashted, Surrey, and later obtained a com- 
mission in the celebrated Black Watch Regiment. He special- 
ized in bomb-throwing, and thereby met his death at the front 
on July 22nd. He was instructing a detachment of the Grena- 
dier Guards in the art of bomb-throwing, when the bomb 
exploded in the trench-mortar and literally blew him to pieces. 
George Mitchell’s death is a great loss to the Yorkshire 
Naturalists’ Union, and more especially to falconry, for how 
many young fellows now take up this sport whole-heartedly ? 
He was also a fairly good all-round ornithologist and a _ pro- 
tector of wild birds in moderation. In this respect I should 
not do him justice if I omitted to say that just before the war 
broke out he was in league with our Wild Birds’ and Eggs’ 
Protection Acts Committee to try and trap some persistent 
robbers of Peregrine Falcons’ eyries. 
Death has been unkind to his family lately. The last 
time that I saw George Mitchell was at his father’s funeral, 
about two months before his own unexpected decease. Shortly 
before that his uncle, Mr. Percy Illingworth, the late Chief 
Liberal Whip died suddenly. Before the war young Mitchell, 
was in his father’s business—Messrs. Mitchell Bros., Ltd., 
Bradford, Mohair Spinners and Manufacturers. The photo- 
graph (in the uniform of the Black Watch Regiment) was 
taken a few weeks before his death. 
It is a pathetic incident that the last note on the last page 
of The Naturalist for August was written by Geo. Mitchell, at 
the front in Flanders: the September number contains his 
obituary notice !—H. B. B. 
1915 Sept. 1, 
