NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 269 



village of North Sunderland, with plenty of boats, and there is 

 the charming clean village of Bamborough, with only one boat, 

 which belongs to a man named Dixon. There is no decent inn at 

 the former, but at the latter there is a comfortable house, kept by 

 Mrs Henry. 



For those who are not so exclusively ornithological that they 

 cannot bear to look at anything which has not wings, there is the 

 grand old castle, and the tomb of Grace Darling, at Bamborough, 

 in the churchyard, where all should pause to pay a tribute of 

 respect to the noble daring which made her, in a boisterous sea, 

 impel her father to launch the boat which was to succour the crew 

 of the ill-fated Forfarshire. Wordsworth has immortalized her in 

 thrilling lines, which are not too long for any one interested in 

 the Fern islands to read, though they are too long to quote in an 

 ornithological paper. But Grace Darling has an immortality 

 conferred upon her by her own heroism which is greater than any 

 poetry can give her. 



Books say that no castle in England has had so definite a 

 connection as the hoary old castle of Bamborough, with History 

 before the Conquest. Its aged walls, which frown down upon us, 

 have stood where they now stand — impervious to war, and time, 

 and weather — since very early times. Kings and rulers, belted 

 knights, and learned men, have passed beneath its massive portals, 

 and Willughby, whose name must awaken emotion in the heart 

 of every naturalist, visited Bamborough, though in what year is 

 not known, except that it was at the time when Sir William 

 Forster was living at the castle. ( Vide the account of the Eider 

 Duck, "Wniughby's Ornithology," p. 362). We can picture 

 this eager searcher after truths in natural history at the old 

 castle. Perhaps the hand of death was already on him, but it is 

 more pleasant to think of him as not knowing that in a few 

 more years his lease of life would be run out ; to think of him 

 pondering on the great ornithological work — great now, how 

 much greater then — which he was going to give to the world, 

 and which, how little men can tell of the future, he was never 

 destined to see published. 



Perhaps it was evening, and tired with the day's journey, he 

 has mounted the castle battlements. The crimson rays of the 

 setting sun are shedding an unparalleled splendour across the 

 waters. With their rich coppery glare, they tinge each wavelet 



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