THE PROTECTION OF BIRDS 141 



struction of the birds ; on one occasion he saw two 

 boats "literally laden with birds, the boatmen sitting 

 on them, and the birds heaped up in the bow and 

 the stern above the gunwale." It was after hearing 

 such-like sad tales of bird murder that he wrote, 

 in April 1867 : 



" It is a most heartless thing to shoot the parent 

 birds in this disgraceful manner, the effect of which 

 must be to leave their young to perish miserably 

 of starvation. . . . They deserve a better fate, for if 

 their young be taken in a boat they may be seen 

 to follow it for hours in the vain hope of aiding 

 or rescuing them, often losing their own lives in 

 consequence at the hands of those who ought to 

 know better. And, lastly, many poor families of 

 the neighbouring villages used to earn an honest 

 livelihood in summer by collecting the eggs for sale, 

 which might then be seen brought in panniers on 

 donkeys both for food and sale as specimens, their 

 endless variety of colour and markings being most 

 remarkable and interesting ; but so few are now 

 left that it is hardly worth their while to run the 

 risk of collecting them. Like the black-headed and 

 other Gulls, the Guillemots come in numbers early 

 in April almost to the day, staying a short time 

 about their nesting-places, and then disappear, re- 

 turning again in the beginning of May with the 

 Puffins and Razor-Bills, when they all stay together 

 to rear their young silice in nudd, if but permitted." 



Not only on the Yorkshire coast was this pitiless 

 slaughter of the sea-birds perpetrated ; the tale was 



