MEMOIR OF THE LATE JOHN* SCALES. 
8o 
lliosc years — and while there Avas introduced to all the principal 
naturalists of the Jardin de.s I’lantes, among others making the 
ac(piaintance of Dufresne, Avdio had been conservator of the cabinet 
of Xatural History maintained at !Malmaison by the ex-Em press 
Josephine;* and from him, as ho many years after informed the 
present Avriter, obtained the beautiful specimen of a Great Auk’s 
egg, so long the chief treasure of his oological collection. In the 
year 1819 there appeared his first, if not his only, printed com- 
munication on ZS’^atural 1 listory. This Avas dated from BeachamAvell, 
June 14th; and, having for its subject the natural relations of 
Gooseberry-bushes, Lady-birds, and A/i/iides, Avas jirintcd in the 
‘ Norfolk (Jhronicle,’ ami is appended to this Memoir (Appendix B). 
it is not in the Avriter’s poAver tr) give many more particulars of 
this ])criod. iSeA'eral letters addressed to Scalcs,t in 1821, by 
Mr. liobert llamond, so Avell kiioAvn for his siiorting and ornitho- 
logical ])redilcctions, are among the documents jJaced at the 
service of the Society ; but though they shcAv the conlidenco 
existing betAA-ecn the two men, and the love of birds Avhich each 
po.ssessed, there is in them little .suitable for publication here. In 
one Avritten (July 2-'>th, 1821) from Colesborne, in Gloucestershire, 
Avhero llamond Avas staying, ho .«ays : — “I beg nobody Avill 
unnail the Bustard case, or move any of the others” — no doubt 
referring to the celebrated case of sitecimens noAv at Conghaiu 
Ilouse.J In another letter (August 18th, 1821) from Cheltenham, 
Avhere he Avas taking the Avaters, llamond tells how at Colesborne 
ho had found larch-aiiples lying on the ground, ami hail been 
sure they Avere the Avork of a bird, Avhose note he Avas not 
aciiuainted Avith, but had heard the day before, till hiding himself 
ho “ saAv a Crossbill Avorking the apples most tremendously,” AA'hich 
Crossbill he Avatched “to another tree Avhero there Avere young 
ones, about a month or fn-e Aveeks old, Avhich Avere being fed by the 
female. I called for a gun to be sure I Avas correct, and told Ehves’s 
groom Avho Avas looking at them to shoot one, Avhich he did, and 
it proved to be the hen bitil. She had evidently been sitting, her 
* Cf. Proc. Zool. Soc. 1870, p. 3. 
t These are the earliest letters to him that have come into my hands. 
i For particulars of these specimens see Mr. Stevenson’s ‘Birds of 
Norfolk ’ (ii. pp. 33 — 35) ; and also infra (App. C). 
