ON THE HISTORY OF CHIPCHASE CASTLE. 295 



Gonoptera Libatrix. — Not uncommon. 

 Amphipyra Tragopogonis. — Yery common in September. 

 Mania (Ncmid) typica. — Common in summer. 

 Mania Maura. — Has occurred at South Shields. 



I hope to be able to supplement this list with further species 

 occurring near Cullercoats, but fear that, as the best collecting 

 ground at South Shields is being so much encroached upon by- 

 new heaps of ballast and rubbish, we cannot expect many addi- 

 tions to the fauna from that locality, the Lepidoptera having 

 rapidly diminished in numbers in the last few years. 



XIX. — Memoir on the History and Architecture of Chipchase 

 Castle, North Tynedale. By the Rev. G. Rome Hall, F.S.A. 



It has recently been remarked that Northumberland has much 

 to show the traveller in many ways, from the Roman Wall on- 

 ward, but the feature which is especially characteristic is that it 

 is "the land of castles." Of the fortified baronial residences 

 called Pele-towers,* those large square Keeps, which are chiefly 

 to be found in Tynedale, the earliest and most imposing is un- 

 doubtedly Chipchase. The unrivalled beauty of its position, 

 the site being a gentle eminence above the banks of the river 

 North Tyne, in one of the loveliest parts of the valley, has been 

 often remarked. f 



* Pele, or Peel-tower, was the usual name of the smaller castles, which had not the 

 central courtyard characteristic of the castle proper. They were very numerous on, 

 and almost peculiar to the Anglo-Scottish Borders, and were rendered necessary on 

 the Marches by the incessant warfare which prevailed down to a recent period. Sax., 

 pit, moles; Lat., pela, pelum, a pile, a fortress, originally applied to defences of earth 

 mixed with timber, strengthened with piles or palisades, like the fortresses of the Britons 

 described by Cajsar. " Pele" occurs in Robertjde Brunne's " Chronicle," and in Barbour's 

 " The Bruce ;" " pell" in Chaucer's " House of Fame." See Brockett's Glossary of North 

 Country Words, 3rd Edit., Vol. II , p. G8. Compare "Bastile," or Bastcll-house, and the 

 notorious Bastile, the state fortress of Paris. 



+ Wallis's Hist, of Northd. ; Hodgson's "Beauties of England and Wales," Vol. for 

 Northumberland, etc., etc. 



