NOTICES OF ESSEX ORNITHOLOGISTS. 31
on the Blackwater, where for many years he kept his yacht. He
had one of the biggest punt guns used in the district, with a
special arrangement of his own for loading, and was recognised by
common consent as one of the best punt-gunners on the coast. To
the poor homeless vagabonds, he was generous almost to a fault; but
he was kind, just, and generous to all, and he has left his stainless
and honourable life as an example to his children and to all who knew
him. Colonel Russell's letters to the Times, Field, Essex Chronicle
and other papers, in reference to wild-fowl and to the real character of
the Sparrow, as compared with that of the Martin, will be well remem-
bered. He also wrote, " Notes on Common Birds in my Garden,"
in the Field (29. June and Aug., 1878.). He took a prominent part
in getting the close-time for wild-fowl altered, and was chairman of
the committee on this subject appointed by the Court of Quarter Ses-
sion. He advocated a close-time for all animals that required
protection. At Quarter Sessions, where at one time he attended
pretty regularly, he was very popular, and was always listened to with
respect on the subjects he had made his own, especially that of a
close-time for wild-fowl.
The following notice appeared in the Essex Naturalist (50. i.
140) :—
" Colonel Russell was a very good chemist, and was most inventive and neat
fingered, always ready with contrivances for effecting any purpose in hand. In
1859, he patented an invention for the improvement of marine engines, chiefly
with a view to the economy of fuel; and among other scientific work he studied
photography with considerable success, being awarded a gold medal at the Paris
Exhibition, and a bronze one at Dublin, for his discovery of the tannin process in
dry plate photography.* The open-air study of nature, as a sportsman and wild-
fowler, was his greatest delight, and aroused all the enthusiasm of his character ;
his knowledge of birds, their habits and feeding-grounds, was most extensive and
accurate, far more so than his written notes ever expressed.
" The company of congenial listeners called forth from the stores of Colonel
Russell's memory a remarkable flow of capitally-expressed narrative and anecdote,
and he has been known to talk continuously for four hours without in the least
repeating himself! A well-known Essex wild-fowler once said, ' He was a mar-
vellous man ; I believe he remembered distinctly every shot he had ever fired, and
they were thousands.' Even in the study, his ruling passion was manifest, his
favourite literature being books of travel and sport. He collected birds in America
and South Africa. The Kafirs had a great respect for ' the Whitebeard's ' skill
as a shot, and it is related that he astonished them once by patiently skinning a
Black Eagle that had become so ' high ' that even they were repulsed. He was
a great advocate for protecting birds and animals, and gave important evidence
before the Wild Bird Commission, taking a prominent part in the alteration of the
close-time, and was the chairman of the committee on this subject appointed by
* On Nov. 24, 1888, Professor Meldola, F.R.S., read before the Essex Field Club a paper on
Col. Russell's contributions to photography, which were of considerable importance.