182 Obituary Notice of Mr George Shield. 



were fitted to illustrate a work on the scale of tliat of Audubon 

 or Selby. The last-named ornithologist had, however, just com- 

 pleted his standard work on British Ornithology, and publishers 

 were unwilling to speculate upon another work on so large and 

 expensive a scale. I remember, when a boy, visiting the studio 

 of George Shield, with a few London friends of my father, and 

 listening to their suggestions as to publishing; and offers of 

 assistance towards carrying out his object. The work, as at first 

 intended, was perhaps wisely discontinued; but in many a 

 Northumbrian house is to be found, one, at least, of the large 

 preparatory plates. They are remarkable for their truth to 

 nature, and the dash and liveliness of the attitudes characteristic 

 of their subjects. This knowledge had been acquired by direct 

 study of the habits of living specimens, with which his house 

 and garden were often filled. A few specimens which I was 

 fortunate in having stuffed by him, I esteem as equal to any- 

 thing I have seen in the largest collections of the old or new 

 world. G-eorge Shield was frequently on the Fame Islands in 

 search of specimens, and had formed the acquaintance of the 

 Darling family. During her last iQness, poor Grace, the heroic 

 daughter of the Darlings, found an asylum for change of air 

 under their friend's roof at Wooler, where her mild and unas- 

 suming figure might have been seen in the Parish Church of a 

 Sunday. A decline removed her while yet young, but the 

 fragrance of her hazardous adventure of loving benevolence has 

 not perished ; but is the watchword of the fishing-boat, and a 

 treasure in the bosom of the hardy mariner as he steers past the 

 solitary Fame Isles, as the waves rise. 



When a lad, I frequently visited Mr Shield's room, where I 

 listened with all the ardour of youth to the narrative of his 

 adventures.^' My nerves would quiver as he described himself 

 suspended by many fathoms of fishing lines over the rocks at 

 TantaUon, in quest of sea-birds' eggs, or the young of the Pere- 

 grine or Osprey. The danger seemed nothing compared with 

 the honour of overcoming it in the cause of science ; and an ex- 

 cursion was soon arranged, with men and ropes, to the rocky 

 side of Cheviot. 



There, suspended over the Bizzle Cliff, I endeavoured to procure 



* [Mr SHeld, I am told, was a good narrator, and enchained as by a spell, 

 a youthful audience.— J. H.] 



