242 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Some of these early observations were turned to good account 

 in after years, when, as an experienced ornithologist, he began to 

 generalize from the records he had amassed, and commenced to 

 write the text for his beautiful work on British Birds, and his two 

 delightful volumes on the ' Birds of Northamptonshire.' As an 

 example of the way in which some of his early notes were turned 

 to account in after years, we may refer to what he has written of 

 the Bed-backed Shrike (' Birds of Northamptonshire,' vol. i. 

 p. 70), which in his schooldays was so abundant in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Harrow, that he used " often to find two or three 

 nests on a summer's afternoon in the thick and ragged fences that 

 divided the great grass fields of that district." Forty-five years 

 later it had become quite uncommon there, doubtless from the 

 growing practice of "plashing" the tall hedgerows, which deprived 

 these birds of their favourite haunts. 



When in 1859 the British Ornithologists' Union was founded 

 by a few enthusiasts, who undertook the publication of a quarterly 

 journal of ornithology, yclept ' The Ibis,' Lord Lilford's name 

 soon appeared as a contributor to its pages. In the volume for 

 I860, for example, we find an excellent article from his pen on 

 the birds observed by him in the Ionian Islands and the provinces 

 of Albania Proper, Epirus, Acarnania, and Montenegro.* Again, 

 in the volumes for 1865 and I860, we find a valuable series of 

 articles by him on the ornithology of Spain, f to which country 

 he made occasional visits at intervals, and did much to enlighten 

 English naturalists on the fauna, and more especially the avifauna, 

 of a country concerning which little, zoologically speaking, was 

 then known. We do not doubt that these papers of his paved 

 the way for the more complete investigation of the Spanish fauna 

 which has since been so admirably carried on by Lieut. -Col. 

 Irby, Mr. Howard Saunders, and Mr. Abel Chapman. Perhaps 

 the most delightful of the articles contributed by him to the 

 pages of * The Ibis ' is his " Cruise of the ' Zara,' R.Y.S., in the 

 Mediterranean." This cruise was undertaken between December, 

 1873, and June, 1874, and shows, as the author himself stated 

 {torn. cit. p. 2), " how much may be done comparatively near 

 home, even by a naturalist so incapacitated by lameness as 



* ' The Ibis,' I860, pp. 1-19, 133-140, 228-239, 338, &c. 



f ' The Ibis,' 18G5, pp. 166-177 ; I860, pp. 173-187, 377-392. 



