240 



THOMAS BEWICK. 



A further addition to the 1826 volumes was made in the form of Addenda, 

 consisting of fourteen figures in all, four belonging to the first volume. The 

 best of these are the Anthits Richardi (Lark), the Blue-throated Robin, the 

 Night Warbler, the Great Snipe, the Selninger Sandpiper, and the Wood 

 Sandpiper. The figure inserted in the body of the 1826 volume as a Woodchat 

 is given in 1832 and 1847 as the Female Red-backed Shrike, while the 

 Woodchat of the Addenda (quite different) is repeated as such in the body of 

 the two later editions. The Harlequin Duck and the Cream-coloured Courser, 

 the last of the birds Bewick engraved, show a decided lack of half-tints, 

 with an evident endeavour to obtain tone by black left solid in the back- 

 ground. The Harlequin Duck does not seem to have satisfied Bewick, as 

 in a letter dated Sept. 27, 1827, Robert, writing to Wingate, states that 

 his father thought the stuffed figure bad, and the plumage in parts dishevelled. 

 A still further addition to the 1826 edition was made in the form of a 

 one-leaf " Additamenta," containing an engraving of an Alpine Vulture 

 from a drawing made by Miss Julia Trevelyan.* 



Bewick never forgot his desire to outrival the book of "Three Hundred 

 Animals," as we find him, at the end of 1824, returning to the project of 

 adding another work to the scheme of the Quadrupeds and Birds. At that 

 time he issued the following prospectus: — "'A History of British Fishes,' 

 the figures engraved on wood by T. Bewick and Son. The work is intended 

 to be put to press in 1826, and to be printed on imperial, royal, and demy 

 papers, to match the ' Histories of Quadrupeds and British Birds ' and the 

 Fables of y^Esop. Subscriptions received by T. Bewick and Son and by 

 all booksellers." This prospectus was adorned with a specimen of the fishes 

 and one of the vignettes, sometimes the John Dory, the Ballan Wrasse, the 

 Dace, the Samlet, or the Lump Sucker. Although these prospectuses were 

 extensively circulated, there does not appear to have been any large number 



* A long correspondence relating to this block is to be found in the Transactions of the Newcastle Natural 

 History Society for 1878. 



