Bird Life on the Farne Islands 31 



BIRD LIFE ON THE FARNE ISLANDS. 



THE Fames consist of a number of low basaltic islets, 

 some fifteen in number, and cover an area of from 

 three to three and a half miles. Some are isolated 

 rocks, others are partly covered with a coarse herbage of 

 various kinds, amongst which thrift and white campion are 

 conspicuous. 



The Inner Farne is the nearest island, being situate two 

 miles from the mainland. Near it are the east and west 

 Wide Opens and the Knoxes ; after crossing a channel a 

 mile and a half wide we reach the Staples, with the 

 Pinnacles, the North and South Wamses, Big Harcar, 

 Clove Car, and Brownsman. The Crumstone, the breed- 

 ing place of several seals, is a mile and a half south-east 

 from the Staples, and to the north-west is situated the 

 Megstone, the rock on which the cormorants breed. The 

 Outer Farne or Longstone is the most northerly of the 

 islands, and five miles from shore. 



A light house is placed on the Longstone, and in the 

 early hours of September 6, 1838, the steamer " Forfar- 

 shire," of three hundred tons, bound from Hull to Dundee, 

 drifted on to the Harcar rocks, which are close to the 

 Longstone, and broke up. Many of the passengers and 

 crew were drowned during the terrible storm that raged on 

 that wild September night and morn. Grace Darling, the 

 lightkeeper's daughter (only 23 years of age), induced her 

 father to launch a coble, and after a gallant struggle 

 succeeded in reaching the wreck and bringing off what 

 remained of the passengers and crew. The heroine, Grace 

 Darling, died in 1842, when 27 years of age. She is 

 buried in the churchyard of Bamburgh, the village in 

 which she was born. 



The Inner Farne is the largest of the islands, and to 

 this romantic situation St. Cuthbert retired and lived as a 

 hermit, " far from the madding crowd," for nine years. 

 The two lighthouses and the tower, a square-shaped 

 structure erected by a Prior of Duiham, are the only other 



