242 Atnoiio;' the Birds in Northern Shires. 



oldest inhabitant " of Bempton or Flamborough can 

 recall, the birds have bred here in enormous numbers 

 and have been as regularly robbed. The Guillemots 

 and Razorbills and Puffins are somewhat irregular 

 in their date of return to the cliffs in spring. Some- 

 time towards the end of April is perhaps an average 

 date, although they have been known to come back 

 as early as February (1884). At the Fames they 

 are apparently earlier, assembling usually some time 

 in March. The young and old birds generally leave 

 the breeding-places for good during the last ten days 

 of August in both of these localities. The eggs of 

 the Guillemot are the easiest to obtain, being laid 

 upon the ledges and in the numberless little hollows 

 about the cliffs; the Razorbill deposits its big solitary 

 ^^^ in a crevice where in not a few cases it is 

 absolutely safe from man; the Puffins, breeding 

 nearer to the top of the cliffs, lay their single ^^^ in 

 burrows. It would be impossible here to describe 

 the wonderful variety in the eggs of the Guillemot : 

 they are by far the most beautiful of any of those of 

 the sea-fowl. Great numbers of these eggs are taken 

 for food; and we can remember how the climbers 

 at Flamborough used to return home to breakfast 

 hungry as Hawks, and break the pretty eggs into 

 the frying-pan with the bacon — forming a meal a 

 gourmand might envy, provided his appetite has 

 been sharpened by a long morning in the bracing 



