xxvi PROLEGOMENA 



an enormous correspondence with collectors in all parts of Great 

 Britain and Ireland. It was a collecting age, and collecting was 

 then more excusable than at the present time, because naturalists 

 were fewer, and rare birds were more plentiful and less per- 

 secuted. T. C. Heysham exchanged specimens with naturalists 

 far and wide ; nothing gratified him more than to receive a 

 Kite from Monmouthshire, or a Bewick's Swan from the coast 

 of Norfolk. The most eminent ornithologists with whom 

 Heysham corresponded, all since deceased, were Hewitson, 

 Hancock, J. H. Gurney, Henry Doubleday, John Gould, and 

 William Yarrell. The last-named zoologist especially benefited 

 by the liberality with which Heysham communicated to him all 

 available information regarding the birds and fishes of Cumber- 

 land. Our knowledge upon this head is chiefly supplied by 

 such draught copies of his own letters as Heysham happened 

 to preserve. Thus, on the 9th of January 1834, we find him 

 writing to Henry Doubleday in the following strain : ' From a 

 variety of circumstances I fear that it will be some time before 

 I can avail myself of your polite and exceedingly kind invita- 

 tion to spend a few days with you at Epping. Nothing, I 

 assure you, could possibly give me greater pleasure than to 

 accompany you to all your favourite haunts in the forest, but 

 the truth is that at present I cannot leave home for any length 

 of time, owing to the great age and daily increasing infirmities 

 of Dr. Heysham, now in his eighty-first year, and which in fact 

 prevents me from inviting many of my kind ornithological 

 friends.' The same letter alludes to Machetes pugnax : ' The 

 Ruffs you have been so exceedingly kind as to send me, are 

 extremely interesting, as exhibiting the very great varieties of 

 plumage in these birds, but I really doubt much whether any 

 of them will mount ; in fact, I strongly suspect that they were 

 all at one time intended for the table, their wings being 

 partially cut, and I fear, therefore, that you have deprived some 

 epicure of a bonne louche.' Heysham first met Yarrell in 1837, 

 as appears from a letter addressed to Henry Doubleday, dated 

 29 Norfolk Street, Strand, September 23, 1837. In this he 

 observes : { I had the pleasure yesterday of seeing your friend 

 Mr. Yarrell for the first time, who was so extremely kind as to 



