XX PROLEGOMENA 



or shambling along the streets with the gait of an aged man. 

 His fondness for both snuff and sweetmeats lingers, as such 

 personal traits will ever linger, in the minds of those who were 

 boys and girls when this distinguished man had far exceeded 

 the ordinary span of human life ; nor has the impression of a 

 kindly hospitality dispensed to his friends at a house in St. 

 Cuthbert's Lane altogether faded from the pages of memory. 

 But we are more concerned with his pursuits as a naturalist. 

 Evidence as to this must be sought for in the writings of Dr. 

 Heysham, because the time when details regarding his zoological 

 work could be obtained from his associates has long passed 

 by ; and the only recollection of his researches into nature that 

 I have come across was narrated to me by an aged pauper, 

 whose father had seen Dr. Heysham standing up to his waist in 

 a muddy pool, fishing, as was supposed, for aquatic animals. 

 Dr. Heysham was proposed as a member of the Linnean Society 

 in 1788, but without his own knowledge. He was only thirty- 

 five when he received this unsolicited honour, but he had already 

 given valuable help to Latham regarding the plumage of the 

 Hen Harrier at the time that Latham was writing his supple- 

 ment to his History of British Birds, and had* thus earned some 

 title to public notice. That Dr. Heysham commenced to study 

 local ornithology within a very short time of his arrival in 

 Carlisle is certain, because it was as early as 1781 that he killed 

 a female Peregrine at her nest near Gilsland, after waiting five 

 hours to secure a shot. Two years later he visited Lowther to 

 study the habits of the Pied Ftycatchers, which annually nested 

 in the grounds of that beautiful park. In the same season he 

 employed his ingenuity to trap Merlins at Eockliffe Moss, and 

 made notes on the Hen Harriers which then nested on Newtown 

 common. His marriage with Miss Coulthard took place in the 

 year 1789, and I question whether he did much field work after 

 this date, although his active habits and unflagging energy 

 remained unchanged throughout a long and successful career. 

 It seems likely that he began to entertain the idea of writing 

 his Catalogue of Cumberland Animals in the year 1795, because 

 most of the notes on ornithology relate to 1796, although the 

 Catalogue was not completed until 1797. 



