82 
MEMOIR OF TUE LATE JOHN SCALES. 
opportunities for study and observation, hindered him from giving 
to the M^orld his own experience or liis comments upon that of 
others. On fitting occasion, hov'ever, it is sufficiently clear that 
ho communicated facts of no small interest in regard to Natural 
History to his correspondents, who, as his son informs tlie present 
writer, were very numerous, and some of these facts have found 
mention — not always, it would seem, correctly — in print. It must 
also be remembered that during the greater part of the peiiod of 
IMr. Scales’s residence in Norfolk, namely, from 1808 to 1842, 
there existed no such facilities as now present themselves to almost 
every country naturalist, for making known his experience ; and, 
though for the latter part of the time tlie foundation by Loudon 
of the ‘ Magazine of Natural History ’ did give the much-wanted 
opportunity, yet the habit of privately confiding an interesting 
discovery to some discreet and esteemed correspondent, instead of 
forthwith making it the property of ihe public (as is now the 
almost universal practice), must have been so M'ell confirmed in 
a man of middle-age, tiiat the establishment of a journal, so 
respectable, and so ably supported as Loudon’s undoubtedly was, 
would hardly form an inducement to break it. There is also 
another point which, delicate as it is, a biographer, to be true, 
cannot wholly overlook. It is almost certain that prosperity did 
not, even in those days, smile upon IMr. Scales, and he may well 
have felt that his circumstances forbad him to court publicity. 
John Scales, the subject of this memoir, was born at Cottingham, 
near Kingston-upon-Hull, in Yorkshire, on the 21st of IMarcb, 
1794, being the eldest son of Eobert Scales, of Holme f (born on 
* The second volume of this magazine contains (pp. 288, 289, 292, 298) 
several communications from “ J.S.,” dated Thurgarton, Norfolk, April 17th, 
1829 ; but I see no reason to ascribe their authorship to Mr. Scales. The 
fourth volume has a note (pp. 430, 431) signed “ William Scales, Stamford 
Hill, April 12th, 1831,” who may possibly have been the naturalist’s brother 
of that name, born in 1799, but there is no evidence in favour of such a 
supposition. 
t The Scales family was of East Anglian, if not of Norfolk origin ; and, 
through Mr. Southwell, I am indebted to Mr. William Hartcup, of Upland 
Hall, near Bungay, for a copy of the inscription on the monument of Eobert 
Scales, who died at the early age of twenty -nine years, November 7th, 1728, 
and was a considerable benefactor to the church and parish of St. Diary’s, 
Bungay. 
