made a search for the coffin of John Hunter in the vaults of St Martin-in-the-Fields. Buckland called Hunter the "greatest of Englishmen" and on 22 February he discovered the coffin after withstanding the noxious air in the vault. The Leeds School of Medicine gave him a medal for this discovery. Buckland married Hannah Papps on 11 August 1863, who was an "excellent nurse" and caretaker for their assorted pets. Buckland's early death was presaged by lung haemorrhages in 1879 after working in the winter. In 1880 he had severe oedema. The excess fluid was drained using a novel treatment of the time, a cannula called Southey's tube developed by the surgeon Dr Henry Herbert Southey whose brother, the poet Robert Southey, was a friend of Buckland. He also had asthma and bronchitis from a history of heavy cigar smoking. The death certificate records the cause as hepatic disease and bronchitis although the cause may have been pulmonary tuberculosis. He was buried in Brompton Cemetery, London. Natural history and zoöphagy Buckland gradually gave up medicine and surgery to devote himself to natural history. He made a good income as a writer for The Field and other periodicals, and from the sale of popular books. He was much in demand as a lecturer and speaker. Buckland was a pioneer of zoöphagy: his favourite research was eating the animal kingdom. This habit he learnt from his father, whose residence, the Deanery, offered such rare delights as mice in batter, squirrel pie, horse's tongue and ostrich. After the "Eland Dinner" in 1859 at the London Tavern, organised by Richard Owen, Buckland set up the Acclimatization Society to further the search for new food. Buckland spoke about the introduction of the turkey, musk-duck and pheasant in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth century respectively and that it was a pity that the same monotonous food was being eaten in the heyday of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1862 a hundred guests at Willis' Rooms sampled Japanese Sea slug (= sea cucumber, probably), kangaroo, guan, curassow and Honduras turkey. This was really quite a modest menu, though Buckland had his eye on capybara for the future. Buckland's home, 37 Albany Street, London, was famous for its menagerie and its varied menus, including, at times, boiled elephant trunk, rhinoceros pie, porpoise heads, and stewed mole. His writing was sometimes slapdash, but always vivid and racy, and made natural history