XXU THE HANCOCK MUSEUM AND ITS HISTORY 



remarkable manual skill, he accomplished an astonishing 

 amount of work, which he published in beautifully illustrated 

 monographs. His collections went to the British Museum, 

 but he bequeathed his valuable library to the Natural History 

 Society. One book in his library is particularly noteworthy. 

 It is entirely the work of his own hand, and depicts in an 

 exquisite manner the wing-patterns of nearly all the known 

 butterflies of certain groups from all parts of the world. 

 Hewitson was one of the members of the " Wednesday 

 Evening Club," an informal precursor of the Natural History 

 Society in the "twenties" of last century: among the other 

 members were the two Hancocks, Winch, and Joshua Alder. 



The late Charles Murray Adamson, of Crag Hall, North 

 Jesmond, was an ornithologist of unusual ability. He acquired 

 a wonderfully exact knowledge of the changes of plumage of 

 birds, especially in the groups where they present the greatest 

 difficulty — the ducks and waders. He also became a skilled 

 taxidermist ; certainly no one ever more perfectly caught and 

 reproduced the charming form and carriage of the wading 

 birds than he did. His mastery in this respect is almost as 

 great as that of his friend John Hancock in the case of the 

 birds of prey. Reference must also be made to the devoted 

 labours of a past honorary secretary of the Society, the late 

 William Dinning; he had a good knowledge and a good 

 collection of local fossils, and it was he who used to maintain 

 in such fine order the rock garden in the museum grounds. 

 The late Dr. Embleton was another prominent member of the 

 Society and an intimate friend of the Hancock brothers, both 

 of whom he assisted in a variety of ways in their work. The 

 former curator of the museum, the late Richard Howse, was a 

 man of many parts. He had a particularly good knowledge 

 of local fossils and geology, and he prepared what scientific 

 naturalists term " critical catalogues " of several collections in 

 the museum, thereby considerably enhancing the reputation 

 of the Society's publications. One other name inseparably 

 associated with the history of the museum must on no account 

 pass unnoticed — that of Mr. Joseph Wright, who for over half 



