282 In Memoriam—John Cordeaux. 
problem or thoughtfully reflecting, the two first fingers and 
thumb of his left hand had a way of seeking the upper part 
of his nose or forehead, as if to aid cogitation. 
Never shall I find another such untiring companion for 
wandering by shore and mud flat, upland common, or tree 
shaded beck. He was so genial, and yet so full of varied 
information, as apt in teaching as he was ready to impart, and, 
withal, as willing and eager to learn himself, as if life were only 
just unrolling the variegated phantasmagoria of modern know- | 
ledge to his gaze. If ever a man’s mental characteristic was 
‘universal inquisitiveness into things which should be generally 
and fully known,’ as he said, it was Mr. Cordeaux’s 
‘Forty years ago,’ he cried, throwing himself back against 
the sea-bank we were lunching under, a merry twinkle playing © < 
in his eyes, ‘I was considered a good-natured lunatic by every- 
body round Cotes, running about with a field-glass and gun to 
study birds instead of doing what every other young farmer 
se ‘‘the thing.” There were only two other scientific 
orkers known to me in the county then—tor the Boggs were 
ier out of my line. I had not, at that time, taken much 
interest in geology or botany. The two workers were the Rev. 
R. P. Alington, of Swinhope, and your kind friend Sir Charles 
Anderson. Both were good men as far as their opportunities 
went. Sir Charles told me the last eggs of the Great Bustard 
ever known in England were taken in ’35 or 36 on his father’s 
property at Haywold, near Driffield, on the Yorkshire Wolds. 
In these days we can form a Naturalists’ Union without being 
laughed at, and the man who has other sokeaahiig besides the 
prize ring and racing is not considered an ass.’ Then, perhaps, 
would follow racy tiles with all Mr. Cordeaux’s picturesque © 
gift and memory for detail to give them point, now of the 
parson, who, ‘in his sermon, gave the little Syrian Bear all the — 
, 
potentialities of the Grisly, till his mystified congregation were 
fairly kept awake through the summer afternoon’s heat, and 
worked up into mildly wondering, ‘‘How David ever escaped, 
and what was coming next!” You want to put fire and 
animation into what you do or say in the pulpit as everywhere 
else, but there must be something else besides manner. The 
sparrow that sitteth ‘‘alone upon the house top” will give some 
men occasion to talk undiluted rubbish for half-an-hour, an 
then they will say nothing whatever—not even where ‘‘the — 
sparrow hath found an house,” or that human beings ‘‘ are of 
common enough in Southern Europe.’ He would end _ this 
