446 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



They were made of plaster of Paris, of the exact size and shape 

 of the originals, hollow, of the right thickness, and with holes at 

 the ends, as if they had been blown. The markings, too, were 

 skilfully imitated. So perfect, indeed, was the imitation, that 

 when Hancock returned to its owner a genuine egg which he had 

 borrowed for modelling, together with a copy of it as a return for 

 the loan, the recipient was unable to decide which was the 

 original, and wrote to Hancock begging him to come and resolve 

 his doubts. The anecdote of his living Greenland Falcon, which, 

 sitting hooded on the perch in his room, was mistaken by a visitor 

 for a stuffed bird, and thought by him to be a little stiff in 

 its pose, is told with gusto in his ' Catalogue' above referred to. 



It is to be regretted that he has not left in print more of his 

 personal reminiscences, and other observations; to hear him 

 discourse of his birdsnesting with Hewitson in Norway, and of 

 his rambles with Charles St. John in Sutherland, made one long 

 for the retentive memory of a Boswell to rescue from oblivion 

 such delightful narratives. 



He had no great taste, as we have said, for writing. Even 

 when engaged upon his 'Catalogue' of north-country birds, when 

 the opportunity occurred for saying much that he could say 

 about some of the rarer species with which he was familiar, 

 from observation of them in their proper haunts, he contented 

 himself with a few brief remarks — much too brief to satisfy those 

 who knew what knowledge he possessed, could he only have been 

 induced to communicate it. 



With a view of attaining an accurate acquaintance with the 

 form and habits of Falcons, he trained nearly all the British 

 species (Cat. B. Northumb. p. 12). including one or two Green- 

 landers and Icelanders which he got from the late Duke of Leeds, 

 and through some of the local ship-owners. There is a tradition 

 amongst falconers that he once killed a young Blackcock with 

 an eyess Falcon, a feat which we have since seen accom- 

 plished in Hancock's own county by a Falcon belonging to Major 

 Hawkins Fisher. 



His friendship with Hewitson, the author of the well-known 

 work on ' British Birds' Eggs,' occasionally brought him south 

 on a visit to his friend at Oatlands, near Weybridge, where, in 

 1848, Hewitson had purchased some land and built himself a 

 house. On those occasions we seldom missed an opportunity of 



