MEMOIR OF THE LATE 
xviii 
the Beacon, then laid up at Malta, paid a visit to Belfast. Acting in 
conformity with that devotion to science by which he had been ever dis- 
tinguished, Captain Graves took measures to obtain from the Admiralty, 
for Mr. Edward Forbes — the late (alas ! that we should have to speak of 
him as the late ) eminent Professor of Natural History in the University 
of Edinburgh — the honorary appointment of Naturalist to his vessel, then 
about to proceed to the iEgean. A survey of the Island of Candia was 
at that time in contemplation. On his arrival in Belfast, Captain Graves 
kindly invited Mr. Thompson to join the party, and succeeded in in- 
ducing him to do so, as a most welcome guest. 
In consequence of these arrangements, Mr. Thompson and Mr. Forbes 
left London together on the 2nd of April, 1841, and proceeded by Paris 
and Marseilles to Malta, where the Beacon then was. On the 21st of 
April they embarked, reached Navarino on the 28th, and anchored at 
Syra on 6th of May. Leaving the vessel there, Captain Graves and Mr. 
Thompson, on the 11th of May, embarked in the French steamer Sesos- 
tris, for Smyrna and Constantinople. On their return, a few days were 
spent by the three friends together in the Beacon, and in short excur- 
sions connected with the surveying work that was in progress. Mr. 
Thompson then started on his return homewards, accompanied by Mr. 
Wilkinson, son of the British Consul at Syra. They reached Athens on 
the 12th of June, Trieste on the 18th, Venice on the 30th. Thence Mr. 
Thompson’s route was by Milan, Constance, Strasburg, Manheim, Co- 
logne, and Antwerp, reaching London on the 19th of July, after an ab- 
sence of about three and a half months. 
The first fruit of this voyage was a paper published in the Annals of 
Natural History, and afterwards reprinted in the Appendix to the Birds of 
Ireland. It was entitled, “ Notice of Migratory Birds which alighted on, 
or were seen from, H.M.S. Beacon, Captain Graves, on the passage from 
Malta to the Morea, at the end of April, 1841.” It enumerates twenty- 
three species, seen under those circumstances, and is valuable because of 
the critical knowledge and accuracy of the observer, and its bearing on a 
question of popular interest, which cannot be better stated than in the 
words Mr. Thompson has himself employed. “Persons even of educa- 
tion,” says he, “ still exist who are incredulous respecting the fact that 
many species which in summer frequent the British Islands, winter south 
of the Mediterranean, and cross that sea annually on their northern 
migration in the spring; but surely the fact of twenty-three of them 
having been seen crossing the Mediterranean during several successive 
days in spring, and- all flying northward, should be a conclusive proof ; in 
addition to which it may be stated, that migratory species only were ob- 
served.” 
During this tour a journal had been regularly kept by Mr. Thompson. 
It is much fuller and more carefully written than the journal of 1826. 
Fifteen years had passed since his former visit to the continent, and had 
brought with them the ordinary amount of change. On a part of the 
route traversed in either going or returning, steam had been at work, and 
old modes of conveyance had been superseded. Some of the scenery had 
been modified in its character ; “ formal ” vineyards had replaced on 
the banks of the Rhine much of its natural planting ; and wood had been 
cleared away even in the proximity of the ruined castles. “ Thus,” he 
remarks, “ are they divested for the sake of gain of their richest charm. 
Were Byron now to write of them he could not say with truth, 4 Where 
ruin greenly dwells,’ though when I was last [here, the expression was 
