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MEMOIR OF THE LATE JOHN HENRY GURNEY. 
Japanese hybrids sprang, I believe, from the old cock bought by 
him at Lord Derby’s sale in 1851, whose mixed offspring first 
peopled the woods of Easton and Northrepps, and then spread else- 
where. For many years a breeder of Mute Swans, which he fatted 
according to the plan in use at St. Helen’s pit, he was naturally 
glad of an opportunity to visit the celebrated Swannery at Abbots- 
bury in Dorsetshire, of which visit he contributed an interesting 
account to the ‘Zoologist’ (1878, p. 208). His subsequent success 
with the Polish Swan at Northrepps, originally obtained from the 
Zoological Gardens, has formed the subject of a paper in our 
‘ Transactions ’ (vol. ii. p. 258), and a nestling bred by him is in 
the Museum. 
Mr. Wolf painted some exquisite sketches of birds on his visits 
to Easton and Catton, and I believe it was at Mr. Gurney’s house 
that he designed his picture of a Merlin attacking a flock of 
Starlings in the snow, which he has of recent years elaborated into 
one of his finest pictorial works. He also made for Mr. Gurney 
a series of twenty-four paintings of birds of prey, which were 
possibly intended for publication in a large form ; but if this were 
so the intention was never carried out, and the paintings still 
remain as they were left by the master-hand which did them. His 
beautiful painting of Pels’ Owl, one of the most successful that 
has ever appeared in ‘The Ibis,’ was a portrait from life made 
at Catton (‘Ibis,’ 1859, p. 445). 
Mr. Gurney’s contributions to ornithological literature were very 
numerous, and some of them, particularly those relating to the 
orders Accipitres and Striges (in the knowledge of which he is 
rightly said to have “stood alone”), of great value. His first 
communication was printed in the ‘ Annals and Magazine of 
Natural History,’ for March, 1842 ; but on the appearance of 
the ‘Zoologist’ in the year 1843, in the success of which periodical 
he took great interest, lie became a constant contributor to its 
pages, and in 184G, in conjunction with Mr. W. It. Fisher (who 
died in 1889), he published in that journal “An account of the 
Birds found in Norfolk,” a production remarkable not only for 
the care bestowed in its compilation, but also for the extensive 
acquaintance with the birds of the county displayed by its authors. 
In 1858 Mr. Gurney took an active part in the formation of the 
British Ornithologists’ Union, and in its journal, ‘ The Ibis,’ some 
