22 PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS. 
half-baked urns, sometimes practising inhumation and sometimes 
cremation, these markings are to be attributed. And that race 
is the Celtic, which peopled England prior to and at the time of 
the invasion of Cesar. All historic evidence, as well as the re- 
mains now existing, goes to shew this, and although it has been 
assumed that there was an earlier and so-called Allophyllian 
race in our country, before the Celtic occupation, to which some 
of our sepulchral relics are to be attributed, no grounds, I think, 
exist, so far as our knowledge at present extends, for this as- 
sumption. When I say this, I only refer to a race, supposed to 
have been supplanted by the Celts, whose sepulchral remains 
have been found, and to which have been attributed certain skulls 
of a so-called Kumbe-kephalic type, but I do not question that 
an earlier race than the Celtic once existed, in ages long ante- 
cedent to historic times, whose remains are found associated 
with the extinct animals, and who occupied land, which widely 
differed, in geographical position and connection, from our present 
continent. 
After leaving the great fort at Bewick, the members visited 
a small and very perfect one, about half a mile distant, over- 
hanging the Harehope Burn, above the Corbie Crags. These 
crags, where the Harehope Burn wears its way towards the Aln, 
are very fine, and characteristic of our wilder Northumbrian 
streams. They were, until these days of unsportsman-like over- 
preservation of game, the abode of the raven and the peregrine 
falcon, but now, thanks to the stupidity of gamekeepers and 
the ignorance of their employers, these interesting and_rare 
denizens of our country have been extirpated. I am sorry to 
say that gamekeepers are not alone the destroyers of birds; the 
rage for collecting, which has embraced among other subjects 
birds’ eggs, is leading to the disappearance of many of the rarer 
birds from our country. Even the scientific collector cannot be 
held excused, and his example has led numerous followers, 
who have no purpose to serve but the mere lust of possession. 
Great destruction is also caused by school boys, and if the parish 
and other schoolmasters could be interested in the matter, their 
teaching might be most beneficially exercised to save the nests 
