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ORNITHOLOGY AT DANBY-IN-CLEVELAND. 
Forty Years in a Moorland Parish. Reminiscences and Researches in 
Danby-in-Cleveland. By the Rev. J. C. ATKrnson, D.C.L., author of 
‘A History of Cleveland,’ etc. Macmillan & Co, 1891. 
Under this title the author has given us a charming volume ; 
from preface to finish it has been very pleasant reading, and we close 
the book with regret, wishing that there was more of it. In these 
days of discontent and increasing restlessness, it is specially pleasant 
_ to wander away with the author into the quiet restful dales of North- 
East Yorkshire, where the conditions of existence have continued 
for generations less exacting and with less wear to mind and _ body. 
orty years and upwards is a long time to have spent anywhere, 
€ven amongst the busy haunts of men and with plenty of congenial 
neighbours. The writer’s lot in life, however, has been one of 
comparative seclusion and separation from the world in the upland 
parish of Danby-in-Cleveland, surrounded by vast and lonely moor- 
lands, and in a comparatively little known and rarely visited district, 
where, from its very remoteness and seclusion, the manners and 
customs, folk-lore and folk-speech have continued to linger with little 
alteration for a longer and to a later period than has, perhaps, been 
the case in any other part of the kingdom; so that in reading this 
book we seem to be brought face to face with a distinct survival— 
a fragment, as it were, stranded on the shores of time, of that 
renowned Northumbrian kingdom, which at one time extended 
unbroken from the shores of the Humber to the lowlands of 
Scotland. 
Mr. Atkinson tells us in the preface to the first edition that during 
his long residence and seclusion in Danby he must have walked 
79,000 miles in the prosecution of his clerical duties alone, and much 
more than twice this for exercise and recreation, and that none of 
Constantly shifting scenery, and the ever-varying atmospheric changes, 
never twice the same. Years spent thus in these hill solitudes have 
not been wasted or thrown away, as all will admit who have read 
these reminiscences. 
The book has already been so well received by the public, and 
favourably reviewed and noticed by the press, that we can afford 
now to pass over those many interesting chapters relating to the 
history, geology, antiquities, folk-lore, legends, superstitions, manners, 
and customs which occupy the greater portion of the volume, 
Oct. 189r, ; 
