NOTICES OF ESSEX ORNITHOLOGISTS.
27
"The extraordinary success I have had with my spider nets will afford you
much amusement. I have taken all the Warblers except the Wood Wren, the
Grasshopper Warbler, and the Dartford Warbler ; also Kingfishers, Rock Larks,
and an endless number of other birds, and I have not the least doubt but I
could take any birds except those which are constantly at the tops of high trees."
The net seems to have been made of the finest knitting silk, with
a mesh small enough to take the Warblers. This size seems to have
been strong enough to take Blackbirds, though the Doctor evidently
had a larger net for the purpose, for he mentions having accidentally
taken three Sparrow-hawks when after Blackbirds. Mr, Hoy and
Mr. Savill have, he says, each taken one. He also enters at
considerable length upon his method of bird-stuffing and says :
" I stuff my birds upon plans which I have myself invented." An
obituary notice of Dr. MacLean appeared in the Entomologist (vol.
iv, p. 357).
PARSONS, Christopher,* the only child of Chris-
topher and Lucy Parsons, of The Lawn, Southchurch, was born
in 1807. He was brought up to farming, and in 1835 he took
Bowater's Farm, East Tilbury, but removed in 1842 to North
Shoebury Hall Farm, where he resided until within a few years of
his death. He then again removed to The Lawn, Southchurch,
where he died in 1883. He must very early have become interested
in Natural History and sport, for his Game-book commences in 1822,
when he was only 15. In the following year, when he was at school
at Poplar House Academy, kept by a Mr. Stock, he was in corre-
spondence about works on Natural History with one Robert Castle, a
naturalist, as shown by a letter which still exists. His interest in
science was deep and to some advantage, for he afterwards became
extremely proficient as an ornithologist, botanist, entomologist, and
meteorologist. In 1828 he spent some months in London learning
to stuff birds, &c, after which he remained at home, assisting in the
work of the farm and "following his bent." His home-life about
this time seems to have been varied by sporting trips and by visits to
France, Scotland, the Fen-district and the North of England, as well
* Christopher Parsons, the subject of this notice, was at least the sixth and the last member of
his family who bore that name. His father, Christopher, who died in 1869, was son of a
Christopher Parsons, who died April 21, 1805, aged 67, and who was the son of another
Christopher Parsons, who died in 1787, aged 88, and who was the grandson of yet another
Christopher Parsons, who died on March 22, 1713. He was overseer of Southchurch in 1682, and
churchwarden in 1689. There was a Christopher Parsons, junior, who held Samuels in 1690, and
Palgraves in 694. His last signature was at Southchurch in 1700. The Parsons family long
resided at Thorp Hall, Southchurch, and the Shore House, Shoebury. For the following
information I am indebted to Mr. E. A. Fitch.