4694 Notices of New Books. 



at Northampton, Nottingham, Hull, Newcastle, Kirkaldy and Glas- 

 gow. In his notes of this tour there is little of Natural History; 

 but at Kirkaldy, on the 3rd of October, he says, in a letter to his 

 parents, " The robins are come into the gardens singing their plaintive 

 songs; I know from this that the beauty of your garden is fading. 

 When I was at home the withering flowers and the robin's song used 

 to make me sweetly melancholy. I am surprised to see the swallows 

 flying about in this part yet. I have not forgotten my collection of 

 insects since I have been out, for I have caught several moths and 

 butterflies, which I have preserved in Thompson's ' Seasons."' [!] 



At the age of twenty-two, he settled at Bridgewater in a small 

 currier's shop, and two years afterwards married. He now com- 

 menced in earnest that collection of insects which is supposed by his 

 friends to have eventually become unrivalled. I use the expression 

 "supposed" because I am not aware, from the evidence of any ento- 

 mologist, what was the extent of a collection which was undoubtedly 

 the wonder of his own neighbours and acquaintances. He continued 

 forming and arranging this collection, without the aid of any books 

 whatever, and, when he subsequently obtained a work compiled from 

 Linnaeus, he found that he had made a very similar arrangement of 

 the various groups. Shortly afterwards he purchased Donovan, and 

 feasted on this expensive publication. 



At this time his attention was also occupied by birds, fishes, reptiles, 

 and especially by fossils, and although he describes himself as 

 " travelling round and round his counter, cutting heel-taps, weighing 

 sparrow-bills and counting hob-nails," yet his heart was in Science; 

 and now commenced a correspondence with Dr. Leach, which exhibits 

 that learned entomologist in a very amiable light, and as rendering 

 every assistance to this comparative tyro in the science. In a letter to 

 Dr. Leach, dated October, 1818, Mr. Baker records the great number 

 of Colias Hyale and Vanessa Cardui that occurred that autumn in the 

 neighbourhood of Bridgewater : the former had not been seen for four 

 years. 



We next find Mr. Baker corresponding on fossil saurians and lily 

 encrinites; moving into more extensive premises; and converting a 

 spacious loft into a museum, " where the boa constrictor could stretch 

 its vast length along, and the solan goose and the swan expand their 

 wings unchecked," and the biographer speaks of this museum as " that 

 motley store which was open to everything, from the head of an alligator 

 to the egg of a humming-bird." These passages given by a kind- 

 hearted and almost worshipping friend, are no doubt strictly true, but 



