Christmas Eve was spent "in the caverns of the British Museum making a drawing, and measuring skeleton of a white stork." This was a most elaborate and careful record of measurements. On the 28th of December he was "engaged on brown paper cartoon of storks at Armstrong's," and on the 30th is the entry,—"at British Museum; had storks out of cases to examine insertion of wing feathers."
Thus, all through the year 1874 Caldecott, working without much recognition excepting from a few intimates, got through an immense amount of work; not forgetting his friends the children, to whom he sent many Christmas greetings with letters and coloured sketches. The drawing on the opposite page accompanied a kindly letter to a child of six years.
"I thank you," he says, "very much for your grand sheet of drawings, which I think are very nice indeed. I hope you will go on trying and learning to draw. There are many beautiful things waiting to be drawn. Animals and flowers oh! such a many—and a few people."
The last sketch in 1874—a postscript to a private letter—tells its own story.
