224 MEMOIR OF MR. ^X. C. HEWITSON, F.L.S., 



surreptitiously, and the surveyors had recourse at nights to torch 

 light. Watchers were employed by the landlords to keep off in- 

 truders, but the railway surveyors circumvented them, by hiring 

 men to go round to the neighbouring public houses to find out 

 the hours at which the watchers were engaged with their re- 

 freshments, and those hours were utilized by the surveyors to 

 accomplish their objects. 



In 1839 he was again at York, and also at Newcastle. About 

 this time he seems to have moved a good deal from place to place. 



When quite a boy he showed a great love for the natural ob- 

 jects of this beautiful world, and whilst at school collected in- 

 sects and birds' eggs. Soon after leaving school he became 

 acquainted with several young men, students of nature, living in 

 his native to\vn, who were following similai' pursuits with as 

 much ardour and enthusiasm as his own. Prominent among these 

 self-educating naturalists were George Wailcs, entomologist ; the 

 brothers Albany and John Hancock, entomologists, conchologists, 

 and ornithologists ; Geo. Clayton Atkinson, ornithologist ; Wm. 

 Robertson, botanist; John Thomhill, botanist and entomologist; 

 Robert B. Bowman, botanist; Joshua Alder, malacologist ; and 

 William Hutton, geologist and pala}ontologist ; a band of students 

 who made several good collections of British bii'ds and their eggs, 

 moUusca, insects, and plants, and who have given a world-wide 

 celebrity to our town, and to whose influence we mainly owe the 

 Institution of the Natural History Society of Xorthumberland, 

 Durham, and Newcastle-upon-TjTie, as will presently be men- 

 tioned. They were all acquainted with Richai'd R. Wingate, an 

 ornithologist, and a celebrated professional bird-stuffer of the 

 town, who possessed a considerable collection of stuffed birds and 

 eggs, and to whose skill our Museum was indebted for the setting 

 up of the birds in the dcpai-traent of British Ornithology, and 

 whose W(jrks were at that time of a high order. 



Mr. Hewitson being a neighbour of Mr. Wingate often visited 

 him, and spent much time in looking over his collections, and it 

 is very probable that during those interesting -v-isits he formed 

 the idea and the determination of making for himself a collection 

 of eggs, which idea and determination hu never lost sight of, and 



