XXXll PROLEGOMENA 



Thomas Gough. During his later years, T. C. Heysham enjoyed the friendship 

 of Mr. Thomas Gough of Kendal, whose tastes and talents bore 

 a close resemblance to his own. John Gough, the father of 

 Thomas Gough, did not marry until middle life, but he lived 

 long enough to mould the character of the lad who was his 

 constant companion up to the time of his death. It was thus 

 that Thomas Gough came to develop an enthusiastic love of 

 nature, which never forsook him. When Thomas Gough had 

 passed fifty, he still looked back with affectionate interest to 

 the early lessons in field zoology which his blind father sought 

 to impart. On one occasion, when lecturing at Kendal, he 

 remarked that ' of all objects connected with Natural History/ 

 he cared most for Birds, adding that he found ' a personal charm 

 in attending to the form and habits of the most familiar species, 

 in connection with some of the brightest incidents of early 

 childhood.' ' A bird] he said, ' was my first lesson in Natural 

 History, and tho' the sj^ecies happened to be somewhat unsuit- 

 able (for it was rather rare), yet the instruction was not the less 

 impressive. The garden with its bushy Arbor Vitae, which 

 harboured the little stranger, the strict silence enjoined when- 

 ever its babbling note was repeated, the anxiety to couple these 

 notes certainly with the individual, the capture of our prize, and 

 then the excitement upon examining a new warbler, and com- 

 paring it with Montagu's newly published description ; its 

 form, weight, and colour harmonising with author's specific 

 characters ; and lastly, the burst of joy with which this feathered 

 visitor, at that time less known to British naturalists than at 

 present, was pronounced to be the Lesser Whitethroat ; all these 

 incidents remain indelibly impressed upon my memory.' Dr. 

 Gough, or Mr. Gough, as he preferred to be called, lectured on 

 various occasions to his fellow-townsmen at Kendal, and it is in 

 these lectures that such avian notes as he has left to us are to be 

 found. His lectures were all popular in treatment, and there- 

 fore contained much that to a scientific ornithologist is a vain 

 repetition of the A B C of the science. Happily they include 

 some capital notes regarding the birds around the Kendal, and the 

 only fault that can be found with them is that they are not more 

 abundantly represented. Dr. Gough, it should be understood, 



