Persian which had been consigned to his care by its former mistress when she married and went to live in France. This beautiful creature used always to be perched on a wicker table by the Bishop's side at meals, and was fed by him with brown bread, asparagus stalks, and other dainties, such as it loved. A chair in the study was specially appropriated to it. On one occasion when a candidate for ordination was being examined by the Bishop in Greek Testament, Archdeacon Walker came in and was about to take possession of the sacred seat, but the rash intruder was smartly checked by the Bishop. 'Don't sit there, Walker; don't you see that's the cat's chair?' The beloved cat, however, after the instinct of its kind, was a 'terrible fowler,' and preyed upon the young family of one of the Bishop's favourite birds, the missel thrush, which he admired for its stately and delicate walk (like Agag,' as he used to say), and for its cleverness in teaching its young how to feed. In 1887 the Bishop contrived a plan to foil the designs of Master Dare upon the infant thrushes. He cased the stem of the tree in which the bird had built its nest for about three feet from the ground with Butcher's Broom, setting the bristles downwards. The device was successful, to the great satisfaction of the Bishop, and the thrush reared her brood in safety. When he was on a visit to Cadenabbia on Lake Como in 1894, being then ninety-two years of age, he observed a large bird of the falcon tribe seize a snake and carry it off to the hillside, where it A A devoured it. The Bishop watched the transaction through a glass, exclaiming, as the bird gradually drew down the snake, 'He swallowed him up like macaroni.' Some of his letters, abounding with allusions to matters of natural history or of agricultural or horticultural interest, read like extracts from the correspondence of Gilbert White of Selborne, whose book, as the Bishop used to say, when once read is your friend for life. The white butterfly produces the caterpillar which eats cabbages and cauliflower plants. The gooseberry and currant pest is a spotted moth. This year a great many gardens show only bare poles, and the oak trees in Hants and in parts here are devastated.'" 'Your list of plants is wonderful; I suppose the land is limestone. I did not know the meaning of the herb Paris. It grows in Hants, where, as well as in Switzerland, I have gathered it; also in Lancashire and the northern limestone woods. Star of Bethlehem grows near Eton, on the Thames. Narcissus bifrons grows in Catsfield... "O terque quaterque beatus"-the shepherd that found so gigantic a morel! I am bound to say, after due experimental proof, that the fungus was not quite so "sapid" as some smaller congeners sent to me from our southern hills, but he was abundantly good and approved of by connoisseurs. This heavenly rain (the Bishop's letter is dated April 18, In a letter to the late Rev. Carey Borrer, Treasurer of the Cathedral and Rector of Hurstpierpoint. 7 To the same. 8 A Selborne shepherd who had brought it to the Rev. Prebendary Gordon, Rector of Harting, who had sent it to the Bishop. 1894) has, I trust, set all your birds free and your grass a-growing, and made your hedges vocal. I have not heard the nightingale, but she has been heard here and at Clapham, near Worthing; nor can I see a swallow. I shall try to-day to go in search of the St. George's mushroom; it ought to be now seen, and is worth seeking and eating.' The following letter is from the Rev. Prebendary Gordon, of Harting, to the Bishop: October 18, 1890. You quite accurately My dear Lord,describe the ordinary sheldrake (Tadorna vulpanser) which I have seen at Newton on the rabbit burrows of the old sea boundary, now half a mile inland, marking the site of Newton Church, which originally stood, like Shoreham and Pevensey Castle, on the brink of the sea. The Welsh called them the 'St. George's Channel ducks,' quite truly referring them to Ireland. But my bird is a much rarer 'ruddy sheldrake' (Tadorna casarca or rutila), which loves the warmest countries in Europe, and is rarely seen north of the Carpathians. Mr. Pratt said that he had never seen one in the flesh before. A bunch or two of swallows still with us daily, but both swallows and swifts went from us earlier last year. All hail for your white-throat, which lingers longer than usual, a fine testimonial to the mercy of your cat! The Bishop went over to Brighton on purpose to see this new unique Sussex specimen of the ruddy sheldrake at Pratt's, a well-known bird-stuffer, where he was delighted with the innocence of a little girl who came in with an empty cage to buy, as she thought, a living bird, so lifelike were the stuffed specimens in the window. The Bishop's annual tours abroad afforded the fullest scope for all his manifold interests and tastes, and the brief notes made in his pocket-book on these journeys as to details of architecture, the varieties of flowers seen in his walks, or of the fish displayed for sale in the markets, or the condition of the peasants' houses and gardens, betoken no diminution in his powers of observation down to the last days of his life. The Archdeacon of Chichester, Mr. Mount (a cousin of the Bishop, but beloved by him as a son), accompanied him on many of these foreign tours, and bears testimony to the astonishing range of his knowledge manifested at such times, the unfailing alertness of his mind, and the quickness of his eye. In passing through a railway cutting he would call attention to the various strata, and name the fossils that would probably be found in that district; in a picture gallery he would single out the most typical examples of the several schools of painting, and indicate and criticise their characteristics; in a walk or a drive any peculiarities in methods of gardening or farming were carefully noted. In Italy especially he would illustrate by quotations from the Latin poets the identity of many existing modes and implements of agriculture with those of ancient times. His enjoyment of travelling abroad was, of course, greatly enhanced by his wonderful linguistic powers. He spoke French, German, and Italian, specially the two |