Essays on natural history, chiefly ornithology / By Charles Waterton, with a continuation of the autobiography of the author.

  • Waterton, Charles, 1782-1865.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Essays on natural history, chiefly ornithology / By Charles Waterton, with a continuation of the autobiography of the author. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    stomach, when no more eggs with unbroken ends remained to carry on the war of Easter Week.* “ The little black and white bitch once began to snarl, and then to bark at me, when I was on a roving expedition in quest of hens’ nests. I took up half a brick and knocked it head over heels. Mr Storey was watching me at the time from one of the upper windows; but I had not seen him, until I heard the sound of his magisterial voice. He beckoned me to his room there and then, and whipped me soundly for my pains. “ Four of us scholars stayed at Tudhoe during the summer vacation, when all the rest had gone home. Two of these had dispositions as malicious as those of two old apes. One fine summer’s morning they decoyed me into a field (I was just then from my mother’s nursery) where there was a flock of geese. They assured me that the geese had no right to be there; and that it was necessaiy we should kill them, as they were trespassing on our master’s grass. The scamps then furnished me with a hedge-stake. On approach- ing the flock, behold the gander came out to meet me; and whilst he was hissing defiance at us, I struck him on the neck, and killed him outright. My comrades immediately took to flight, and on reaching the house informed our master of what I had done. But when he heard my unvarnished account of the gander’s death, he did not say one single unkind word to me, but scolded most severely the two boys who had led me into the scrape. The geese belonged to a farmer named John Hey, whose son Ralph used to provide me with birds’ eggs. Ever after when I passed by his house, some of the children would point to me and say, * Yaw killed aur guise.’ “ At Bishop Auckland, there lived a man by the name of Charles the Painter. He played extremely well on the Northumberland bag- * The practice of presenting children with stained eggs at Easter was once uni- versal throughout Christendom. The egg combats at Tudhoe resembled the snail- shell contests which Southey says “he never saw or heard of” except at a school to which he was sent near Bristol. “ The shells were placed against each other, point to point, and pressed till one was broken in. This was called conquering, and the shell which remained unhurt acquired value in proportion to the number over which it had triumphed.”—[Ed.]