1 24 T. H. NELSON : A RAMBLE ON THE FARNE ISLANDS. 



The following day, although the wind had abated, there was still 

 a heavy ground-swell running, and we decided on having a drive to 

 Chillingham to see the Wild White Cattle. 



The day after our visit to Chillingham the sea had gone down 

 sufficiently to allow us to get out to the islands again. We landed 

 on the Inner Farne, the largest of the group, containing an area of 

 about sixteen acres, partly covered with short grass. On the land- 

 ward side it presents a bold froQt of basaltic cliffs, rising to a height 

 of seventy or eighty feet, while on the north-east the ground gradually 

 falls to the water's edge, where there is a landing-place. It was to 

 this island that the holy St. Cuthbert retired from the world, and 

 lived the life of a hermit for nine years ; evidence of his occupation 

 of the place still remains in the chapel, even now in a good state of 

 preservation, v\1iere there is a monument to the memory of Grace 

 Darling. A tradition exists that St. Cuthbert tamed the Eiders and 

 trained them to build near his oratory, whence they derive one of their 

 names, 'St. Cuthbert's Ducks,' but we found no sea-birds breeding 

 here at the time of our visit. The other buildings on the island are 

 the Tower, a square-shaped building, built by one of the Priors of 

 Durham, and, on the landward side, the two lighthouses, occupied 

 by the light-keeper and his family. 



I may mention here that the islands are leased by an association 

 having for its object the preservation of the birds breeding there — 

 a most desirable aim, and one which it is to be hoped will be strictly 

 carried out. Members of the association are allowed to live in the 

 Tower for certain periods, and I can imagine no more delightful 

 manner for an ornithologist to spend a holiday than to picnic on the 

 islands in the breeding season, given pleasant companions and fine 

 weather, for without the latter it is often impossible to land on the 

 middle islands, and many a visitor who disembarked when the sea 

 was calm has had to remain for days before he could be taken 

 off again. A gentleman whom we met at Bamburgh told us he 

 had once gone out to the Longstone for a few days' seal-shooting, 

 when a storm coming on the night of his arrival kept him a prisoner 

 in the lighthouse for more than a week. During one stormy winter, 

 Cuthbertson, who is the Trinity House relief man, had to wait for 

 thirteen weeks before he could get out with provisions for the relief 

 of the light-keepers. The scene on the Longstone during a storm 

 must indeed be grand and awful in the extreme ; great seas hurl 

 themselves over the rocks, strike the Hghthouse, leap up its sides, 

 and throw vast clouds of spray, even up to the lantern, for the time 

 hiding from view the hundred other columns of water which shoot up 

 into the air amongst the other islands. Seaward nothing is to be 



Naturalist, 



