306 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 



very indifferent, hardly any Kittiwakes now on the 

 coast, a good many when we first arrived, but no pro- 

 pagation in these parts of that species. We shall be 

 going to Lilford about the middle of next week. Shall 

 I send you some venison ? And if so, whither ? Irby 

 has hired a shoot of some 4000 acres near Wimborne, 

 where he has a good breed of partridges, and expects 

 to slay snipes. There are a few Blackgame. 



Let me hear how you are. I hope the rheumatism 

 has left you in peace of late. 



Did you hear tell of a mourning friend at poor Jack 

 Eussell's funeral, who hearing a bystander remark that 

 the flowers, wreaths, etc., in the grave were very beau- 

 tiful, said, "Yez, it is very luvly, sheur enuf, bi^t I 

 rackon the dear old feller eud zeuner lie in a vuz brake." 

 My wife sends her very kind remembrances. 



Yours very truly, 



Lilford. 



S.S. Olovjworm, B.Y.S., Dartmouth, 



August 12, 1883. 



My dear Newton, 



Thank you very much for yours of 10th to 

 hand yesterday. I should like to hear what becomes 

 of the egg of Great Auk. I would have given £100 for 

 it, but did not particularly care to make an offer. 

 I told Seebohn about it, but he did not seem 

 to rise. 



About the killing of Otis tarda in Spain, I wanted 

 some choice specimens and as I found that there is now 

 a demand for them in Seville for culinary purposes, 

 besides a little French widow who buys all she can get 

 at 2$. for preserving and sending to Paris, thinks I that 

 we may as well have our share. With 3 exceptions all 

 that we shot were old males. There is no fear of the 

 extinction of the species in Spain, as the Marisma of the 

 Guadalquivir seems to be the only district in which 

 they are bullied by man to any extent, and with the 

 exception of a wandering Bonelli's Eagle they have 



