Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 4 (1900).djvu/198

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170
THE ZOOLOGIST.

the rage for collecting had not then set in; but some of these birds, sold thirty years after at Mr. Rising's sale, produced the very high prices already mentioned.

Amongst other names associated with those "halcyon days" may be mentioned Frederick Frere, Henry Teasdel, John Dawson Turner, Joseph Tomlinson, J.G. Overend, and Robert Rising of Horsey. Mr. Overend's very representative collection was dispersed in June, 1876. There were ninety-six uncased lots, numbering one hundred and eighty specimens, which fetched ridiculously low prices. Mr. Rising's birds were sold at Horsey, September, 1885. There were one hundred and forty-two lots of well-authenticated birds, which realized about £340, several of the best of them ultimately going to the Norwich Museum and to the Connop collection.

Among local collections at the present time stands prominently that of Mr. E.M. Connop, of Rollesby Hall, which at the time of cataloguing by Mr. T. Southwell a few months since consisted of 434 cases, containing 336 species of birds; and among them may be mentioned Overend's White Stork, Great Spotted Cuckoo, Black Stork, Greater Shearwater, Yellow-legged Gull, Little Bustard, and many others.

Mr. Fielding Harmer has choice birds, comprising a fine series of Breydon-killed Spoonbills, and several of the rarer Waders in nuptial attire, all obtained by him prior to the advent of the Bird Protection Acts. Mr. Bellin, Sen., has a locally killed Gull-billed Tern, Caspian Tern, and other rare Terns. Mr. B. Dye, a blind baker ornithologist, still collects, and is the proud possessor of a fine female Spoonbill with a grand crest, the Pectoral Sandpiper, White-winged Tern, Fork-tailed Petrel, and a number of others; several of them were preserved by himself before his eyesight failed him. Nothing more delights him now than being left to identify any bird placed in his hands by feeling it. Mr. E.C. Saunders, who collects as well as preserves his own specimens, has had, among others killed in this neighbourhood, Norfolk Plovers, Black-throated Diver, Montagu's Harrier, Solitary Snipes, and others. Mr. G. Smith's name is associated with the first recorded examples of the Tawny Pipit, the White Wagtail, the Mediterranean Black-headed and Iceland Gulls and the Greater Shearwater, mention of which, with other rare