Natural History in the English Counties. 271 



was soon got over, through the liberality of George Townshend Fox, Esq., 

 of Westoe, near South Shields, who, with a degree of public spirit which 

 deserves to be recorded, agreed to advance the purchase-money (400/.), 

 allowing it also to remain in the Society's hands for two years, without in- 

 terest, and the principal sum to be repaid at the convenience of the Society. 

 The entire collection was accordingly transferred from the Grange to New- 

 castle, and carefully preserved in rooms prepared for it, during the three 

 years occupied in erecting the new edifice. The same interval was employed 

 in examining the condition of all the specimens, and in repairing the inju- 

 ries which damp and neglect, for twenty-two years, had unavoidably com- 

 mitted. The apartment in the new building allotted to the museum is 

 an octagon, 40 ft. long by 20 broad, and 16 ft. high, placed directly over 

 the vestibule. The entrance to it is by two narrow winding staircases 

 within the library hall, which also conduct to the gallery of the library. 

 This part of the general arrangement is rather awkward ; but that ijs not its 

 only nor its worst fault, for the situation has unluckily curtailed the dimen- 

 sions of the room, and led to an apprehension that, if the additions which 

 the museum is rapidly receiving continue progressive, as there is every rea- 

 son to suppose they will, the space will be found too small. The room is 

 lighted from above by large squares of ground glass, which throw a some- 

 what sombre air over it ; but, upon the whole, the appearance is handsome 

 enough. 



The collection, as originally formed by Mr. Tunstall, though it embraced 

 all the other departments of nature, and some miscellaneous curiosities, was 

 essentially an ornithological one, in the proportion of about eight parts 

 British to three of foreign birds. In the present collection the birds are 

 mounted in separate glass cases, arranged round the room into the great 

 Linnean divisions ; but in consequence of the repairing and renewing of 

 specimens, the final placing of the cases is not yet completed, and cannot be 

 for some time to come. The imperfect mode of mounting known fifty 

 years ago, and the dishevelment which carelessness and repeated removals 

 from place to place have occasioned, render it necessary, whenever it can 

 be done, to replace the older by more recent specimens. This work is in 

 constant progress, and a considerable number of specimens, of birds espe- 

 cially, as well as of other objects, in the highest preservation, are daily finding 

 their way into the museum. One object which is steadily kept in view is, 

 that the collection of the birds, at any rate, of the British islands, should be 

 as complete as is to be met with any where throughout the empire. This 

 we approve of, for many reasons ; but chiefly because it would seem to be 

 highly appropriate that, in the native town of Bewick *, the votaries of this 

 delightful branch of natural history shall have it in their power to see spe- 

 cimens of all the British birds, in as perfect a state as they are to be seen 

 any where else. The members of the Society feel that what gives a peculiar 

 value to the birds in this museum is the interesting fact, that they include 

 many of the identical specimens from which their own illustrious townsman 

 drew his figures for the wood-cuts which embellish his unique and cele- 

 brated work. It was his master-hand that originally traced out for them a 

 celebrity only to perish when all that is perfect in design, and exquisitely 



* This truly amiable man, and, beyond all comparison, greatest genius 

 Newcastle has ever produced, died on the 8th of November last, in the 

 76th year of his age. He continued to the last in the enjoyment of all his 

 faculties ; his single-heartedness and enthusiasm not a jot abated, and his 

 wonder-working pencil still engaged in tracing, with his wonted felicity 

 and fidelity, those objects which had all his life afforded him such delight, 

 and which have charmed, and must continue to charm, all those who have 

 any relish for the pure and simple beauties of nature. 



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