Page:Bird Haunts and Nature Memories - Thomas Coward (Warne, 1922).pdf/186

134 One of the best type, warehouseman in a well-known Manchester house, made a well-earned name for himself as an all-round, reliable naturalist; he saved and retired, ending his days in the enjoyment of the hobby of his life. He stuffed birds in his spare time, and very well he did them. Thoroughly trustworthy and honest, he hated anything that savoured of fraud or sham; he made many life friends and many bitter enemies by his outspoken exposure of deceit in his brother naturalists. Greedy collectors, by no means an extinct class, have only themselves to thank for much of the fraud which surrounds the "identity" of specimens. A school of collectors and taxidermists discovered that there was a market for British or locally obtained specimens which could be supplied by substituting specimens from abroad or from other areas than those stated on the labels. Wild-fowl, and often ornithological oddments, arrived from abroad in the wholesale markets, and these were speedily snapped up, and often shown to the collector "in the flesh" with an entirely spurious local history. How many black woodpeckers are preserved in museums or collections as British? This practice our honest warehouseman exposed and frustrated, cutting off much illicit gain. It was from such men as he that we learnt how skins of ruffs were imported from Holland, mounted and sold as locally obtained; how American skins were treated in the same way to obtain the big prices for "British killed" rarities. It is an old fraud; has it ended?

In suburban Liverpool lived one who in his day was counted the great authority on all local natural history matters; Liverpool scientific societies knew his name, published his notes. He was past his four score years when we visited him, and no doubt a failing memory accounted for some of the strange "facts" he related. As we entered his garden we were hailed by the screams