38
THE BIRDS OF ESSEX.
In the year 1838 there appeared in the Essex Literary Journal
(19.3) an account of a visit to the museum, together with the report
of a lecture on geology, three hours long, by Professor Sedgwick on
the occasion of the re-opening for a new session. An admirable
history and description of the museum also appeared in Life-Lore
for November, 1888. The Rev. C. G. Green states {Recollec-
tions of Sport and Natural History, p. 5) that his earliest reminis-
cences of Natural History are associated with this Museum. *
The Salter Collection, the property of Dr. J. H. Salter, of
D'Arcy House, Tolleshunt D'Arcy, is, I believe, of interest, contain-
ing many specimens (especially of the Falconidae) shot by Dr. Salter
himself on the adjoining marshes; but I have not yet seen it.
The Smoothy Collection, the property of Mr. Charles
Smoothy, of Danbury, is at present deposited in the Chelmsford
Museum, but, though a good series, it does not contain many Essex
specimens of special interest.
The Sudbury Museum Collection was dispersed by sale
in 1872, some of the specimens being purchased for the Walden
Museum, the rest being lost sight of. Of the museum, Mr. T. B.
Hall of Coggeshall gave in 1843 a brief account (23.341) in the
Zoologist, from which it appears that it had been opened in the be-
ginning of the previous year, a building having been erected on pur-
pose for it in Friar's Street. At that time it contained 310 specimens
of British birds (nearly 170 species) and the eggs of 160 species,
beside numerous other collections, including the following specimens :
an Otter (near Sudbury), a black Hare (Henny), pair of Curlews
(Sudbury), pair of Arctic Terns (Friar's Meadow, Sudbury), &c. &c.
Canon Babington says (46.7) : " The collections of all sorts are now
dispersed. The sale catalogue (June 4th, 1872), of which I possess
a copy, enumerates their contents, but not in a very satisfactory man-
ner." Elsewhere (46.6) he says that the localities of the specimens
of birds were not recorded and adds "after many inquiries, I have
only been able to make out that, though a great part of them were
obtained about Sudbury, the stations of a very few only of the speci-
mens are known, some of which [presumably the birds] are now in
my possession."
wooden framework. The stuffing of so large an animal was, in those days, a great accomplish-
ment. The elephant was exhibited in the Great Exhibition of 1851, where it excited consider-
able interest, and was caricatured by Leech in the pages of Punch.
* It may here be stated that the Museum is very deeply indebted to the late Mr. George Stacey
Gibson, who, shortly before his death in 1883, devoted a large amount both of time and of money
to its reorganisation.