xii 



PREFACE. 



whom he had long been attached, and returning to 

 England shortly after, their wedding was celebrated in 

 the following June. 



The next twelve months were passed quietly, if not 

 at home at least not in foreign travel ; but in little 

 more than a year his hereditary enemy, the gout — 

 which had shewn itself even while he was a schoolboy 

 at Harrow — laid hold upon him, and confining him to 

 the house for a time incapacitated him from the enjoy- 

 ment of field-sports. Meanwhile the aviary at Lilford 

 continued to grow, and at the end of October, 1860, he 

 was able to write to me : — 



" I have taken to hawking, not yet with any striking 

 result except allowing a fine Goshawk to escape. 

 The Zoologist will probably present its readers with — 



' On the keeper of Esq. of 



Northamptonshire, shot a fine specimen of that rare 

 bird the Golden Eagle. Its tail is long, its eyes are 



yellow. Mr. the well-known taxidermist of 



pronounces it to be an adult male, etc. etc. etc.' — and 

 this will be my female Goshawk." 



Again at intervals he suffered from the same disease, 

 which was destined to mar the remainder of his life : 

 and a very severe attack supervening in the autumn of 

 1861, soon after the death of his father, when he suc- 

 ceeded to the family honours and estates, temporarily 

 disabled him from walking. Yet he was able to attend 

 the General Meeting of the British Ornithologists' 

 Union in London on the 11th of December, as well as 

 that of 1862, which was held at Cambridge on the 7th 



