——." 
139 
he used to sit upon my knee in front of the fire enjoying the 
warmth—his skin distended with moisture like a sponge, for such 
is frog nature—stretching now one leg out, now another, and 
answering a gentle rubbing under the throat with a subdued croak 
of evident pleasure. I called him “ Pharaoh,” and when quite 
restored to health and vigour, turned him into a little wayside 
marsh at the back of my garden, where he founded a colony, and 
for all the time I lived I never wanted for the cheerful sound of 
“ Kirk Kurruk,” all through the pleasant springtide. 
Of Fishes and Insects I am sorry to say I know very littlh— 
but the Eden Whiting is surely peculiar to that river; and do 
Flounders usually come so far upwards from the sea as they must 
do to be caught, as I am told they are, at Wetheral? There is 
also a fresh water Mussel peculiar to the Petteril.2 
Two years ago I found a colony of the grub of the Goat 2 
Moth in a mouldering old oak; and the same year we caught a 
very fine specimen of the Death’s-Head Moth. Is it commonly 
known—I daresay it is—that this unfortunate creature when seized 
screams like a rabbit or a child? 
I must now apologise for the constant egotism so apparent in 
what I have just read. That hateful letter “I”—capital I—recurs 
in almost every sentence ; but I did not want to give a cool resumé 
of many books which you can all read for yourselves, but merely 
to lay before you, for as much as they are worth, a few observations 
of my own ; having given nothing on hearsay or from mere printed 
history, with the few exceptions I have noted as I went on. 
There are just one or two practical points I would touch on 
before I stop. When I said what I did about the value of local 
objects of interest, do not imagine for one moment that I would 
exclude foreign beasts and birds altogether from a County Museum 
—only keep them separate. If possible get a collection together, 
by all means—every bird and beast under the broad canopy of 
heaven ; but surely let that come by and by. Let us begin at 
home, and when we have exhausted all our home subjects—in the 
collection of which we may all take an intelligent part—then if we 
1 Unio sp. or Anodon sp. ? Cossus ligniperda.—(ED.) 
