10 MEMOIE OP THE LIFE OF JOHN HANCOCK, 



Charles St. John, Esq., in his "Tour in Sutherland," Yol. II., 

 page 168, says, in 1849, ^'I have spoken of the Peregrine, the 

 Iceland, the Greenland Falcon, and also the Falcon of Norway, 

 as being distinct species. This, however, is a point to be 

 decided by naturalists more skilful in the anatomy of birds than 

 I am myself. Scrihimus indocti. My remarks are merely the 

 result of my own unscientific observations, aided by the inspec- 

 tion of the numerous and beautifully-prepared specimens of my 

 friend Mr. Hancock, who, I believe, I may safely assert is the 

 best stufEer of birds in the kingdom. The examination of his 

 collection has been a source of great pleasure to me, but it has 

 also had the effect of making me dissatisfied with the perform- 

 ances of all other preservers of birds. A bird when it is stuffed 

 and ' set up,' as they term it, ought to be ' aut Casar aut nihil.'' 

 A bird stuffed in a second-rate manner is a very valueless and 

 unsatisfactory affair; and it would be far better for the further- 

 ance of Natural History if people, instead of having a rare bird 

 badly stuffed and put into a distorted shape and attitude, with 

 projections where no projections should be, and hollows where 

 there should be none, would be content to keep merely the skin 

 just sufficiently filled with cotton or tow to prevent its shrink- 

 ing." Mr. Hancock accompanied Mr. St. John in his tour in 

 Sutherland. 



In 1853 he published "A Fasciculus of Eight Drawings on 

 Stone of Groups of Birds, the whole being representations of 

 specimens stuffed and contributed by the Author to the Great 

 Industrial Exhibition of 1851. Newcastle-on-Tyne : Published 

 by the Author, 1863." Copies of these adorn the walls of the 

 Committee Eoom of the Museum. 



John Hancock knew birds thoroughly. At a distance he re- 

 cognised them by their flight, and nearer, their movements and 

 their notes were all familiar to him. He had observed and 

 sketched their various fashions of plumage for each sex, age, 

 and season, inclusive of their nuptial d]'esses and habits ; and 

 so well was he acf^uainted with their habitual feeding and nest- 

 ing places that he could find them easily, as he did in Switzer- 

 land, and even provide them on occasion, as he once did at 



