MEMOIR OE THE LATE JOHN SCALES. 
87 
]Unls of Africa, in six volumes witli most brilliant plates by 
T.evaillant, Avhicb are valuable and scarce. Amongst my valuables 
and curiosities I have a white Hat with Ferret eyes, alive : five 
having been caught a few days ago at a fann-house near Cheltenham. 
!My friend is very handsome, but very ferocious. I shall introduce 
him into jN’orfolk as soon as my .<Fscalapius permits me to leave this 
place. ... I have seen no cove that understands or cares 
about ornithology, although I have plenty of visitors. I ju.st give 
you these few lines to let you know 1 am not defunct, but shall 
hope yet to rally and yet show some sport with the buck-hounds 
provided I can get Stags, for which I am now straining every 
nerve." 
It is almost unnecessary to point out that the Northumberland 
ornithologist mentioned in the preceding extract was Selby, who in 
1821 visited Norfolk, and a letter of his to Scales from Twizel 
House, January 21st, 1825, throws more light on the latter’s 
proceedings at this period, so that the following extracts may be 
introduced here with advantage : — 
“ You will I am afraid, have already imagined that I had forgotten the 
promis-o I made when last I had the plea.<uro of seeing you at Swaffham, to 
communicate with you by letter. This however is far from being the case. 
Hut my time has been so thoroughly occupied in preparing the plates of the 
Bustards [for the ‘ Illustrations of British Ornithology ’] that I have not 
had a leisure moment to spare upon any other matter. I have now got them 
finished, and a.s the letter-press, as well as the other subjects contained in the 
last fiisciculus, are nearly ready for publication I hope it will be before the 
public in a month or six weeks. 
“As my collection of British insects is at present almost exclusively 
confined to the Lepidopterous Insects of my own county, you cannot err in 
sending me specimens of all j’our rarer Coleopiera and such of the 
Lepidoptera as are peculiar to Norfolk or other southern parts of England. 
. . . . I hope your father has perfectly recovered the indisposition under 
which be laboured when I was in Norfolk.” 
In tbo summer of this year Scales accompanied his friend Hamond 
on a tour through France to Switzerland, returning down the Ehine 
and through Holland to Valkenswaard^ as would seem from a long 
letter, bearing date Zurich, August 7th, 1825, and addressed to 
^liss Scales — his sister Elizabeth — in which he narrates that part 
of his journey from Geneva. It would be useless here to quote 
descriptions of scenery that has now become familiar to almost 
