of Gilbert White from the ‘ Natural History of Selborne,’ as that 
of Richard Lubbock from the ‘ Fauna of Norfolk.’ 
The subject of this memoir, born in 1798, was the eldest and last 
survivor of the eight children of Richard Lubbock, M. D., an eminent 
physician in Norwich, and shortly after his father’s death, in 1808, 
he was sent, under the advice of Dr. Parr — who had resigned the 
mastership of the Norwich Grammar School some few years before 
— to a school at Chiswick, where Dr. Horne was then head-master. 
Intended for the Church, his education was subsequently continued 
under a private tutor before entering upon a University career, and 
having passed through the usual course as a graduate of Pembroke 
Hall, Cambridge, ho took his B.A. degree in 1824, and that of 
M.A. in the following year, when ho was also ordained. 
His taste for natural history appears to have been very early 
developed, and as a lad ho was always welcomed by his uncle, the 
lato Mr. J. Postle, of Colney Hall, who, was accustomed to say, 
whenever Lubbock walked over, gun and rod in hand, from his 
mother’s residence at Norwich, “ now the larder will be well 
filled.” Mr. Postle also possessed a good collection of stuffed 
birds and other objects of natural history which had an attraction 
for the young ornithologist, and to which no doubt he contributed 
from time to time, the river and low-lying meadows at Colney 
being noted in those days for snipe and wildfowl, and the stream 
itself was formerly known as “the Swan River,” from the frequent 
appearance there of wild swans in hard winters. 
Soon after ordination Mr. Lubbock obtained a curacy at Down- 
ham, on the western side of the county, which afforded opportuni- 
ties for studying the fauna of the “ Fen district,” at a time when 
its main features had been but little altered by drainage and 
cultivation; and the shores of the Wash, some twelve miles north 
of Downham, gave facilities, as well, for acquiring a knowledge of 
the habits of the numerous shore birds which then, resident as 
well as migratory, frequented the sandy flats and mussel-scalps of 
that portion of the coast. Three other curacies held by him, after 
leaving Downham, were all situated within a few miles of Norwich, 
and, in point of locality, were equally fortunate as regarded his 
tastes and out-door pursuits. Whether by accident, therefore, or 
choice, the villages of Ilcllington, Rockland, and Bramcrton, 
became successively the scenes of his clerical duties, it is evident 
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