THE BIRDS OF THE OUTER FARNES 119 



arm, and a year or so ago it somehow or other came to 

 pass that the birds found themselves practically un- 

 protected in any way. The nests were at the mercy of 

 any one who cared to land, and were robbed so reck- 

 lessly that the extinction of the colonies was threatened. 

 The danger was happily met by the public spirit 

 of a party of philornithic gentlemen who, with Mr. 

 Hugh Barclay, of Colney Hall, Norfolk, at their head, 

 leapt into the breach and obtained a lease of both 

 groups of the Fames. They placed at their own cost 

 watchers on the chief islands, giving leave to land 

 to those only who promised in writing to conform to 

 the rules of their association, one of which was that 

 without special permission not a single egg should for 

 a time be taken. 



What most forcibly impresses a visitor on landing, 

 after he has recovered a little from his astonishment at 

 the number of birds still remaining, and their tameness, 

 and his ears are becoming more accustomed to the 

 Babel of cries all round him, is perhaps the regular 

 and orderly manner in which the nesting-grounds are 

 divided among the different species, and the honourable 

 manner in which the arrangements agreed upon are 

 carried out. According to Reginald, it was St. Cuthbert 

 himself who mapped the islands out for them. 



The first colony we invaded consisted entirely of the 

 Lesser Black-backed and Herring Gulls. These two 

 species (the Black-backs were by far the more numer- 

 ous, perhaps in the proportion of eight or ten to one) 

 share between them the flat table-land of the island, 



