9656 Birds. 



contrasting strongly with the dignified movements and the sombre 

 tints of the young herring gulls. As it was too rough an afternoon 

 for boating, we decided to walk along the summit of the cliffs in the 

 direction of Speeton. Climbing down amongst the broken masses of 

 diluvium, and crossing a little rill from the high ground almost choked 

 with bright yellow masses of the marsh marigold, and thickly bordered 

 with rushes — a likely looking sjjot for woodcock and snipe on their 

 first arrival from the far north — and then scaling the opposite hill, we 

 presently reached the higher range of cliffs. It was not, however, till 

 we passed the northern extremity of the Dane's Dyke that we reached 

 the great harvest of the sea-fowl. The old trench and euibankment 

 called the Dyke, now covered with gorse and brachen, runs com- 

 pletely across the promontory, here about three miles from sea to sea. 

 Popular tradition ascribes it to the Danes, although it is probably of 

 much older date. Even now, after the lapse of so many centuries, the 

 work remains in a wonderful state of preservation, and will well repay 

 exploring from end to end. From Dane's Dyke to the termination of 

 the chalk cliffs near Speeton, where they leave the coast and run 

 inland, is, measured by the sections of the coast as given in Phillips's 

 ' Illustrations of the Geology of Yorkshire,' just three miles, and the 

 average height of the cliff about 330 feet. This portion of the coast 

 is now the last retreat of the sea-fowl — last I say, for most certainly if 

 the present senseless and cruel persecution of the birds is continued, 

 the day will arrive when they will be as rarely seen as on the opposite 

 side of the headland. 



I was told that a few days previous to our visit a party of five men 

 had been down for a day's shooting, and boasted to have killed six 

 hundred head of guillemot, razorbills, &c. The greater portion of 

 these birds thus slaughtered they did not even take the trouble to pick 

 from the water. It was a mere wanton, senseless and useless butchery. 

 Old residents at Flamborough have frequently assured me that twenty 

 years since, before the railway was made, the sea-fowl were then more 

 than double in number compared with their present quantity. At that 

 time they regularly frequented and bred in the lower ranges of cliffs, 

 and in all the little bays as far as the extreme point of t!ie headland. 

 Now on all this portion of the coast hardly a bird, saving a few rock 

 pipits and jackdaws, are to be seen. Still after twenty years of almost 

 ceaseless persecutions, on all the higher range of cliffs, the number of 

 sea-fowl is very great. 



During our evening walk we saw immense quantities both of the 

 guillemot and razorbills, and about the highest and most inaccessible 



