AMONGST THE SEA-BIRDS. 223 



birds are to be seen to-day, but any number of those we have 

 already been sailing amongst. They sit overhead in long lines, 

 apparently absorbed in thought, scarcely caring to fly even 

 when fired at, as the old Roman senators were found sitting in 

 native dignity when the Gauls broke into the Senate House and 

 literally bearded their august department and silent majesty. 

 The birds are soon slung by Captain Try on a spar at the stern 

 of the Firefly, and as they hang head downwards in all the 

 freshness of their unsullied plumage, we could not help wishing 

 for Hook to portray their slender forms and pure tints in a 

 sea-piece worthy of their beauty. How wooden and un- 

 natural will they look when set up, even by the most cun- 

 ning of taxidermists, compared with the flexibility and grace 

 of their deathful charms at present. Before the Sea-Bird 

 Protection Bill was passed, scenes of sickening butchery were 

 of daily occurrence here in summer; especially at the 

 breeding season, when the birds are tamer than at other 

 times. Artisans and tavern keepers from the inland large 

 towns used to hire boats and go out, often in a drunken 

 state, shooting at everything that flew near them, frequently 

 to the dread and peril of the boatmen themselves. Multi- 

 tudes of the poor victims were never picked up, and their 

 death too often meant the destruction by starvation of their 

 broods on the cliffs. 



Besides their innocence and beauty, and their use as sea- 

 scavengers, the birds of Flamborough are of positive advantage 

 to sailors during a fog. They hear their windy screaming and 

 wrangling on the cliffs, and keep well off the rocks. This 

 aspect of the bird's usefulness was finely described by the Rev. 

 Richard Wilton in his poem on the " Flamborough Pilots " at the 

 time of the agitation for the Bill. We had been eager pro- 

 moters of the Bill, and were certainly amply repaid by the 

 sight we saw to-day, the increased number of birds sporting, 

 feeding, and clanging, like the wish-hounds of Dartmoor in full 



