AMONGST THE SEA-BIRDS. 227 



the look-out once more descries a similar collection of birds, 

 all as before engaged in fishing or riding in long white lines on 

 the dark sea. Forthwith the Firefly bears down upon them, 

 and all in eager silence again watch the gunners. The same 

 tactics as before are repeated by the different kinds of birds, 

 the Vice-Commodore being much chagrined at the wildness of 

 the Manx shearwaters ; again some incautious birds cross the 

 yacht's bows and wheel overhead, and once more with a similar 

 result to the last attempt, four barrels are simultaneously poured 

 into them. These sea-birds seemed to bear a charmed life ; and 

 the last we saw of the flock was its whirling and falling like 

 huge snow-flakes before a dark cloud on our port bow. But 

 only those who have tried know how difficult it is to hit a bird 

 in one kind of rapid motion, from the deck of a vessel, itself in 

 uncertain motion, with an undercurrent of throbs and spasms 

 from the ceaseless plunging of the piston-rods. When memory 

 turns to the incredible slaughter which used to take place 

 amongst these very sea-fowl before the Bird Bill was passed for 

 their protection in 1869, it is perhaps matter of satisfaction that 

 even now, when the fence months have expired, it is not quite 

 so easy to hit a sea-gull from a boat as it is to knock down a 

 fieldgare from its perch on a hedgerow. And should the main- 

 tenance of the Sea Fowl Preservation Act seem to anyone, 

 while contemplating the enormous number of birds on these 

 shores at present, a useless restriction on sportsmen, it will be 

 as well for him to bear in mind that, just before the passing of 

 that Bill, on a strip of coast eighteen miles long near Flam- 

 borough Head, 107,250 sea-birds were destroyed by pleasure 

 parties in four months ; 12,000 by men who shot them for their 

 feathers wherewith to adorn women's hats, and 79,500 young 

 birds, which died of starvation in the nests thus bereft of pro- 

 tectors. Commander Knocker, who was stationed at Flam- 

 borough, and reported these facts, saw two boats loaded above 

 the gunwales with dead birds, and one party of eight guns killed 

 1,100 birds in a week. Practical ornithology, besides the 



