58 LONDON BIRDS 



beach almost anywhere along the coast if it has been 

 blowing hard on shore for any length of time. 



One of the chief breeding-places of the Guillemot 

 in the British Isles is on the coast of Yorkshire. 

 So many of the old local industries which once gave 

 a special charm of its own to rural life in England have 

 one by one withered under the blighting influence 

 of the smoke of modern factory chimneys, that it is 

 refreshing to find that there is one place at least out- 

 side St. Kilda where the most picturesque industry of 

 all cliff-climbing for sea-birds' eggs still survives 

 in full vigour. 



It is agreeable, too, to be assured that, in spite of 

 the enormous number of eggs gathered to meet an 

 increasing demand from towns, farmhouses, and 

 cottages for a coveted delicacy, there is no apparent 

 decrease in the number of birds, which have of late 

 years, if there is any difference, been more plentiful 

 than ever. 



The chalk, which on the Norfolk coast bears the 

 weight of the forest beds and contorted drifts of the 

 cliffs of Sheringham and Cromer, emancipates itself 

 farther north, and at Flamborough and Bempton 

 presents to the sea a precipitous front of white, un- 

 broken excepting by an occasional ' pocket ' of red soil 

 from above, or in sheltered slopes by patches of flowery 

 turf. 



The cracks and ledges of the mouldering cloisters, 

 and the buttresses, dungeons, and round towers of the 

 giants' castles, into which centuries of storms from the 



