and all about him. In 1894 the marriage of his elder
surviving son, John, the present Lord Lilford, gave him
great pleasure, which was increased in due time by the
birth of a grandson. During the spring of 1896 he
had several repeated attacks of his old malady, though
none of uncommon severity; but on the 17th of June,
in that year, an unexpected collapse closed the useful
and blameless life of which this is a very imperfect
sketch.
Though so long suffering from a painful hereditary
disease, he had the compensation of a genial hereditary
disposition. On the one side he was endowed with
social charms like those which won for his mother’s
great-uncle, Charles James Fox, the love of so many
friends; while on the other side to him clearly descended
the characteristic, expressed by the pen of
Matthew Prior, and still to be read on the monument
of his paternal ancestor (the first Sir Thomas Powys
of Lilford) in the transept of Thorpe Achurch, of being
“ possessed by a natural happiness.”
Cambridge,
A. N.
Christmas 1897.
NOTE.
A few words seem necessary to explain my small share
in bringing this work to a conclusion.
When, on the lamented death of its originator, this
task was entrusted to me, I found that nearly the whole
of the Plates of the birds remaining to be figured were
in a more or less advanced state of preparation, some
finished, some with the lithographers, and on some the
artist was engaged. Moreover a list of the figures of
species as yet unissued was in the Publisher’s hands,
but no portion of the letterpress had been written. To
this list, which seems to have been mainly derived from
Col. Irby’s ‘ Key List of British Birds,’ I have adhered
very closely, concluding that the birds not named in it
were not intended to be figured. The only additions I
have ventured to make are the two Willow-War biers
Phylloscopus viridanus and P. proregulus, which appeared
in England in the autumn of 1896, and Pro-
cellaria cryptoleucura, and no bird recorded since the
close of 1896 has been added.
Regarding the letterpress, it was obvious that to
attempt to compile any notes of the species on the