12 THE BIRDS OF ESSEX.
detail. He was son of North Dale, of St. Mary, Whitechapel, silk-
thrower. He was apprenticed for eight years to an apothecary, and in
1686, commenced practising at Braintree as a physician. His chief
work, Pharmacologia, the first important systematic work on the
subject, appeared in 1693, a supplement following in 1705. His
second great work, The History and Antiquities of Harwich and
Dovercourt, written by Silas Taylor, but furnished with an appendix
by Dale which exceeds the main work in bulk, was published
in 1730. Dale died on June 6, 1739, and was buried in the
Dissenters' burial-ground at Bocking. His herbarium, bequeathed
to the Apothecaries' Company, is now in the British Museum, and
the neat and elaborate tickets to plants obtained from numerous
correspondents bear witness to his botanical worth. I am not aware
that he made any observations on the birds of this county, except
those given in his History of Harwich, many of which are not clear
as to whether they are general or local.
DANIEL, Rev. W. B. (about 1753 ?—1833), author of
Rural Sports, was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, taking
the degree of B.A. in 1787 and that of M.A. in 1790. He does not
appear to have been ever beneficed, although he took orders. He
seems to have indulged in sporting tastes to a degree which shocked
even his tolerant age. A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine (1802,
lxxii, 621) says, with regard to his unwillingness to own his title as a
clergyman, "perhaps there is propriety in such renunciation, for
where is the consistency between a fisher of men and a hunter of
beasts." He died, at the reputed age of eighty, in Garden Row,
within the Rules of the King's Bench, where he had resided for
twenty years. Rural Sports, which appeared in 1801, was the
delight of sportsmen at the beginning of this century, and has been,
says a writer in the Quarterly Review, " the basis of many a later
book on field sports." It contains a fair number of references to
sport and natural history in Essex, due, it may be imagined, to the
probable fact of his having resided at Great Waltham, of which
parish, it is said, he was once rector.
DIX, Thomas (1830—1873 ?), was born at Dickleburgh,
Norfolk, but in early life his parents removed to Essex, and he after-
wards became the tenant of Stanford Rivers Hall, near Romford, which
he farmed for many years. Whilst residing there, he became intimate
with Henry Doubleday; but I have not been able to ascertain that
he has left any observations of interest, although he is known to have