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Updated: May 31, 2025
Waterton, a distinguished country gentleman of ancient family in Northumberland, publicly mounted and rode in top- boots a savage old crocodile, that was restive and very impertinent, but all to no purpose. The crocodile jibbed and tried to kick, but vainly. The mode of escaping from the reptile he showed to be not by running away, but by leaping on its back booted and spurred.
I did not deem it necessary to refer to the man's offer, to send me and my machine to Waterton in a wagon, and I was just on the point of boldly announcing that I was in no hurry whatever to get on, and that it would suit me very well to wait here for a few days, when the boy burst into the room, one end of his little neck-tie flying behind him. "The Dago's put!" he shouted.
In 1796 Waterton left Tudhoe school and went to Stonyhurst College in Lancashire. It was a country house of the picturesque style of King James I., which had just been made over by Mr. Weld of Lulworth to the Jesuits expelled from Liége. The country round Stonyhurst is varied by hills and streams, and there are mountains at no great distance.
Waterton well says that, if we knew its utility in thinning the country of mice, it would be with us what the ibis was with the Egyptians a sacred bird. He examined the pellets ejected by a pair of owls that occupied a ruined gateway on the estate. Every pellet contained skeletons of from four to seven mice.
Though, like most of its tribe, it is sometimes seen in flocks, it never feeds with other species of cotingas. The witty Sydney Smith, remarking on the account Waterton gives of the campanero, observes: "This single bird then has a voice of more power than the belfry of a cathedral ringing for a new dean.
In his grandson’s old age, when another white-haired Yorkshire squire was dining at Walton Hall, I remember that Waterton and he reminded one another that their grandfathers had planned to march together to Prince Charley, and that they themselves, so differently are the rights of kings regarded at different ages, when schoolboys together, had gone a-bird’s-nesting on a day, in 1793, set apart for mourning for the decapitation of Louis XVI. Waterton has himself told the history of his earlier ancestors in an autobiography which he wrote in 1837:—
The Fannies of our island though this I say with reluctance are not improving; and the Bath road is notoriously superannuated. Mr. Waterton tells me that the crocodile does not change that a cayman, in fact, or an alligator, is just as good for riding upon as he was in the time of the Pharaohs. That may be; but the reason is, that the crocodile does not live fast he is a slow coach.
The Dictionary of National Biography might tell us something about him, but that handy little volume is not here; moreover, it has a knack of telling you everything about people save what you ought to know. So, for example, I had occasion not long ago to look up the account of Charles Waterton the naturalist.
They belong to the Psittacidae, or parrot tribe, and are known at once by the great length of their tails, and by having their cheeks destitute of feathers. There are several species which frequent the trees growing on wet and swampy ground. The red and blue macaw, the largest and handsomest of the family, is well described by Waterton.
I did not leave Waterton until after nine o'clock the next day, for, although I was early at the shop to which my bicycle had been sent, it was not quite ready for me, and I had to wait. Fortunately no Willoughby came that way. But when at last I mounted my wheel I sped away rapidly towards the north.
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