Hancock] 
BRITISH ORNITHOLOGY 
267 
young friend and promising naturalist ” ; and just twenty - 
one years afterwards Hancock superintended a new edition 
of the famous British Birds , the value of which is now fully 
recognised, for owing to the care taken, first in cleaning the 
old blocks, and then in printing from them with the best of 
ink — ink of inferior quality having been previously used, 
and especially in the earlier issues, which command so high 
a price — fine details of engraving, the existence of which 
had hardly been suspected before, became revealed. 
In the spring of 1833 , John Hancock, with another friend, 
accompanied Hewitson on a birds’ -nesting expedition to 
Norway, the results of which were made known by the last- 
named in his British Oology , and more briefly in the Magazine 
of Zoology and Botany (ii. pp. 309 - 17 ). Just fifteen years 
later, Hancock joined the late Charles St. John on a tour 
with the same object in Sutherland ; but his field experience 
was otherwise mainly gained in his own neighbourhood, and 
is recorded in his Birds of Northumberland and Durham. 
The more recently published Birds of Northumberland , by 
Mr. George Bolam ( 1912 ), is also indebted to Hancock, 
who, the author states, “ during his lifetime gave me much 
information concerning local birds, and left me a large parcel 
of letters on the same and kindred subjects.” 
Hancock died at Newcastle-on-Tyne, October 11 , 1890 . 
For a memoir, by his friend Dr. Dennis Embleton, vide Nat. 
Hist. Trans. Norihumb. and Durham , xi. pp. 1-20. 
1847. [Reissued by.] Bewick’s History of British Birds. 2 vols. 8vo. 
Newcastle : 1847. 
See under Bewick (T.). 
*1853. A Fasciculus of Eight Drawings on Stone, of Groups of Birds, 
etc. . . . contributed by the Author to the Great Industrial Ex- 
hibition of 1851. Newcastle-upon-Tyne : 1853. 
Collation — 1 vol. folio, litho title + 11. with 8 pi. and wrapper. 
Five of the groups are of falconry and British birds. 
1867. Ornithological Notes {Trans. N.H. Soc. Northumb. and Durham , i. 
pp. 281-4.) 
1874. A catalogue of the Birds of Northumberland and Durham with 15 
photographic copper-plates from drawings by the author. {Op. 
cit. vol. vi.) 
