238 THE BIRDS OF YORKSHIRE. 



Minster up to 1840, and the young were annually taken by 

 an old mason named Gray ; the nest was on the southernmost 

 of the two west towers, and could be reached from a window 

 near with a landing-net which Gray used to borrow from Mr. 

 F. Boyes's father for the purpose ; the young were distributed 

 to the hostelries in the town. It has been stated that a tree 

 on an island of Hornsea Mere was formerly utilised as a nesting 

 site. 



On the sea-cliffs it was noted in HinderweU's " Scar- 

 borough " (1830), at Flamborough and Speeton ; two young 

 were taken from there in 1844 and kept alive at Hedon (ZooL 

 1845, p. 823). The site of the nest at Flamborough in 1837 was 

 on the cliff near the King and Queen Rocks. An interesting 

 piece of evidence respecting its occupation of the Flamborough 

 cliffs was supplied to me in the summer of 1902 by Henry 

 Marr, one of the " dimmers " at Bempton, who stated that 

 his uncle, Richard Marr (who died in 1901 " turned eighty "), 

 was " top-man " with old George Londesborough, and re- 

 membered Ravens breeding on the cliffs ; he started climbing 

 at the age of thirty-five (about 1855), and a pair of birds then 

 nested between the Danes' Dyke and the " Dor " ; one was 

 seen on the cliffs on I3th June 1889.* Other breeding places 

 were to the north of Filey Brigg before 1858 (E. Tindall, MS.) ; 

 the Castle Cliff, Scarborough,where Alfred Roberts remembered 

 a pair about 1855 ; Peak, north of Scarborough (Hinderwell, 

 1830) ; and at Hawsker Bottoms, near Whitby, where it 

 bred about 1865, and is reported to have appeared there 

 again in 1880. On the Cleveland coast in the early part of 

 the last century, and, as I am informed by Mr. W. Cook, 

 ex-keeper of Grinkle, so recently as 1860, the high crags of 

 Boulby were resorted to ; two of these birds were seen about 

 1870 on the beach near there, on the dead body of a sailor 

 washed ashore, while a single individual was noticed in the 

 late spring of 1902. It is enumerated in Graves's " History 



* A tragic event is said to have occurred in connection with the 

 disappearance of the last pair of Ravens on the East Riding cliffs, 

 the unfortunate man who descended to the nest being killed by the 

 breaking of the rope on his ascent. 



