masters. His 
Ln Memoriam— -fohn Cordeaux. 283 
discourse on natural history preaching in response to the loud 
laughter of his audience, with merry, sparkling eyes, and a 
short, chuckling laugh which was ever infectious. Standing on 
the same sea-bank later in the year, he pointed out the spots in 
the famous North,Cotes thorn hedge where he had first viewed 
some of the rarest visitors to our coast, or where his friend, 
Mr. G. H. Caton-Haigh, had added the Greenish Willow- 
Warbler and Rodde’s Bush-Warbler to the British List 
Walking over what to other people would have been an 
endless succession of uninteresting fields, he was ever ready 
does the Bog Rhubarb (Peéasites offictnal’s) grow here and 
nowhere else for miles? Why does it always grow in clumps, 
rapidly spreading, unless prevented, wherever it is found?’ On 
Aylesby Beck, on another occasion, he was peering through 
a bush, to get a view over the bank, with all the circumspection 
of a master in woodcraft, searching the feeding-ground of the 
Summer Snipe (Zo/anus ochropus) with the fieldglass ‘to find out 
if the young have yet appeared.’ Later on he was advancing 
theory after theory why the nest was never found, though they 
seemed to ‘remain with us all the year round. I have had boys 
climbing the trees and looking into every old nest and likely 
place, but it is no good. We cannot spo ot it—and they must 
breed here, for I have seen the young.’ Later in the day he 
was pointing out the place where the Grass of Parnassus still 
grows in all its beauty, but from which the more lovely Marsh 
Helleborine had departed for ever. ‘You have a specimen from 
this very spot,’ he finally added, ‘ gathered by the Rev. M. G. 
Watkins and myself. Your problem is, Why has it gone? 
Now find the true solution; no other will do!’ Space fails me 
to tell half the thronging memories which come crowding on 
the mind of his observations, happy suggestions, and general 
mental position of—‘ Why, would you kindly help me to under- 
stand, and explain !” 
In reality birds had no greater interest specially for Mr. 
Cordeaux than many other natural objects and phenomena that 
- surrounded him. The circumstances of his life had given him 
unusual opportunities for observing them, and he had made the 
most of his time, and prepared himself for taking full advantage 
of any chance that offered by studying the literature of orni- 
thology, visiting Heligoland, Norway, and Vads6, and forming 
a long and cali ee with Herr Gatke and many other 
, however, was wider than any one science. 
Chipped flints, aca mounds, ancient camps, or the forest beds 
7th Sept. 1899. 
