[ l8 4 ] 
XVI. A Letter from Captain Davies to 
John Ellis, Rf quire , F. R. S. on a Method 
of preparing Birds for Prefervation . 
S I R, 
Shooter’s-Hill, 12th March, 1770. 
Read March 
1770. 
22, 
A S officers in his Majefty’s army and 
navy have greatly the advantage in 
general, of molt people (by means of their pro- 
feffion) of vihting different parts of the world, they 
have of courfe more frequent opportunities of meet- 
ing with many new and wonderful productions* 
which, though they do not pafs altogether un- 
heeded, are in a manner loft to mankind, for want 
of knowledge in the difcoverer, of modes for pre- 
ferving fuch things as may appear extraordinary or 
worth adding to the collections of the curious. I have 
therefore, for the advantage of the gentlemen of 
thofe profeffions, or any others, difpofed to enlarge 
the funds of natural hiftory already extant, (know- 
ing no one labours more affiduoufly to add to the 
knowledge of the productions of nature than your- 
felf), taken the liberty of fending you an ac- 
count of a procefs for the prefervation of birds, 
beafts, and other extraordinary productions of 
the animal world, which I have by a feries of 
experi- 
