Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 6 (1902).djvu/45

Rh observations, one day he would be found wandering amidst the splendid scenery of Lakeland, interrogating the dalesmen on points in the history and traditions of the wild things around; the next lying hidden along shore, glasses and book and pencil before him, watching and noting the actions of the waders and wildfowl as they were moved along the great sand-banks by the swift flowing tide of Solway; or, maybe, on one of the native whammle boats going down the firth on the ebb, ever amassing the knowledge which, in many hundreds of articles and paragraphs, he contributed so profusely to these and other pages.

The same industry with which he carried on his general work characterized his correspondence. Letters of three or four sheets and post-cards followed each other in such rapid succession, that any conscientious correspondent not gifted with the like enthusiasm had difficulty in making due acknowledgment. Telegrams, too, came at times when anything he thought important cropped up. We remember with pleasure how, seated at breakfast one May morning in 1888, a "wire" was laid before us, which read as follows:—"Pallas's Sand Grouse have arrived in numbers. Look out for them. Tell everybody. Macpherson." The state of suppressed excitement under which our friend laboured in making such an announcement can well be imagined by those who knew him.

His keenness of disposition and Celtic fervour of temperament occasionally led him into impatience with fellow-workers, and it has to be said that, now and again, some little disagreements resulted where more phlegmatic individuals would never have noticed any incompatibility. But no permanent estrangements ever resulted. Macpherson was always first to heal any breaches thus made.

His first work of importance was the volume on the 'Birds of Cumberland' (1886), prepared in collaboration with Mr. Wm. Duckworth. Next followed the 'Visitation of Pallas's Sand Grouse to Scotland in 1888' (1889). Three volumes of the 'Young Collector Series'—"Fishes," "Mammals," and a "Handbook of British Birds"—were undertaken and issued in 1891. The last named, although certainly of rather limited dimensions, is really a capital little manual, and ought to be more widely known than it is. In 1892 came his magnum opus, 'The Verte-