EEPOKT OF THE COMMITTEE. 153 



loss through the death of your brother, Mr. John Hancock, who 



has rendered such unparallelled services to our Society. 



The resolution, of which' I enclose a copy, was put upon the 



minutes of the Committee at their last meeting, and you may 



feel assured that it expresses the feeling of every member of the 



Society. 



Believe me, very truly yours, 



Armstrong. 



By the death of Mr. John Hancock, the Society has lost its 

 most influential and active member. Though brought up and 

 actively connected with the older naturalists from boyhood, more 

 especially with his brother Albany and W. E. Hewitson, Mr. 

 John did not become a member and officer of the Society till 

 1859. Previous to that time he had assisted on many occasions, 

 and had performed the laborious feat of stuffing the "Walrus and 

 the Polar Bear as early as 1833, and these still remain to attest 

 his early skill in taxidermy, but they are trifling compared with 

 the after work done for the benefit of the Society's collections. 

 In 1862-3, when the old Museum building had been re-roofed 

 and the interior refitted, he undertook the arrangement and re- 

 casing of the collection of British Birds, which at that time were 

 the ornament of the Old Museum, and also the best public col- 

 lection of stuffed birds in England, preserved chiefly by E. E. 

 "Wingate. It was during this time he began to feel the narrow 

 bounds and the crowded state in which the valuable collections 

 now accumulated in the Old Museum were buried, so as almost 

 to render them useless, and to see the pressing necessity there 

 was for a larger, more commodious, and more eligibly situated 

 place than the dark, obscure comer, concealed from public view, 

 in which the old building was located, the only point of advan- 

 tage it possessed, if that was a real advantage, being its prox- 

 imity to the Central Station. 



About this time Mr. Hancock's ability and skill in landscape 

 gardening began to show itself, and his refined taste soon found 

 full scope for development in laying out the grounds attached to 

 the mansions of some of his most influential friends. The grati- 

 fication they felt in the power of his genius in turning fields and 



