1010 The Zoologist— December, 1867. 



of the poor birds during ihe season affords almost constant and 

 profitable employment to three or four guns. One man, a recent 

 arrival at Flamborough, boasted to me that he had in this year killed 

 with his own gun four thousand of these gulls ; and I was told that 

 another of these sea-fowl shooters had an order from a London house 

 for ten thousand. No wonder the kittiwakes are rapidly disappearing. 

 There has this year been a marked diminution of the great breeding 

 colony in the Speeton cliffs. The shooting commences as soon as the 

 poor birds return to this their summer quarters, and is carried on 

 without intermission on every fine day in the spring, summer and 

 autumn. A few years more and the glory of Flamborough will have 

 departed. Can nothing be done to check this cruel, shameful and 

 shortsighted destruction of our beautiful sea-fowl ? This slaughter is 

 going on, not only at Flamborough, but at every other favourable 

 position round the coast, and will continue, unless our fair country- 

 women are moved by compassion, or find some substitute more novel 

 and taking than the all-prevailing plume. Let them persist in wearing 

 sea-bird feathers, and the end is indeed not far distant. Future 

 generations, when they flock to the sea-coast during the pleasant 

 summer days, will only hear the tradition of the sea-birds home. The 

 grand scenery of our storm-broken coasts will remain, but the winged 

 multitudes which once gave life and animation to these lonely head- 

 lands will for ever have disappeared, the victims of a passing folly. 

 Will not some pen more able than mine write an appeal powerful 

 enough to melt the heart of even the most devoted votary of fashion — 

 for women are proverbially pitiful, and I am sure will never counten- 

 ance a custom indulged at such a cost ? The young kittiwake is par- 

 ticularly in request by these feather-makers, as the rich black markings 

 on the plumage contrast favourably with the pure white of the under 

 parts and pearl-gray of the back. Often a rare gull is procured by 

 these local gunners : these birds generally find their way to some 

 collector; but this is not always the case, and many a valuable capture 

 is sent away amongst a heap of the common species to be cut up for 

 plumes. A young Iceland gull (L. Icelandicus) was shot on Saturday 

 the 12th. I was told the Iceland gull is not uncommonly met with at 

 Flamborough during the autumn and winter, aud about half a dozen are 

 shot by the gunners every year. The lesser gull has also been fre- 

 quently killed, both at Flamborough and the Bridlington coast; two in 

 immature plumage were shot on the 12lh. L. eburneus, L. Sabini and 

 L. glaucus have been killed at Flamborough. Of the terns the 



