NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW.. 115 



binocular, but failed to note a single Bridled bird. This form is 

 decidedly scarce here, so far as we had opportunities of judging, and 

 indeed such appears to be the case at most of East Coast sea-bird 

 nurseries. 



Away westwards stretched a rather fine range of cliffs, having 

 little or no apparent undercliff or broken frontage like the Head- 

 land, but at one part rivalling St. Abb's itself in height. We 

 should like to have taken a row along this shore, but our time was 

 too limited, and we therefore tacked back to the village. 



After landing, I and another of the party walked along the cliff" 

 edge as far as the Lighthouse,* over slippery grass slopes, keeping 

 a good look out for Choughs, but with no success. 



Mr. Seter, the Lighthouse keeper, told me that scarcely ever does 

 a bird of any kind strike the lanterns, which are 224 feet above 

 the surface of the water, and have a white dioptric light of the first 

 order. In foggy weather a siren horn — at a height of 245 feet 

 above the sea — sounds for six seconds' duration, with intervals of 

 one minute and a quarter between each blast ; and it would be 

 interesting to know what effect, if any, the blowing of this gigantic 

 horn has upon the migration of birds. It is in foggy weather that 

 birds usually flit like moths round the bright lanterns, dashing 

 themselves against the domes and glasses, or resting on the balconies ; 

 but when the unearthly roar of the fog-horn resounds every minute 

 and a quarter, it would not be perhaps surprising that they fly 

 away terrified into the darkness of the fog and night. f 



It is the impression amongst naturalists who have known and 

 visited St. Abb's Head, as well as of the people in the locality, that 

 the rock-birds have decidedly decreased greatly in number during 

 the last twenty years or less. Col. Drummond Hay, amongst others, 

 writes that he observed this decrease while dredging off St. Abb's 

 Head in May last, 1880. He states that " Each time I have passed 

 it there were nothing like the numbers of parcels of birds fishing in 

 the neighbourhood that used to be in former years," but adds, "I 

 have no doubt they are steadily on the increase again." In 1850, 

 Mr. Hepburn described the Guillemots as being in "countless 

 thousands," and spoke of " ledge above ledge crowded with birds." 



* Built in 1862 on Harelaw, the middle hill of St. Abb's. 



+ Mr. Seter has since left St. Abb's Head Lighthouse, and his place is now 

 taken by Mr. W. Anderson, formerly at Sumburgh Head, Shetland, 



