Birds. 9325 
all round the sandy shores of Lancashire and Cheshire; and among the 
sand-hills near Formby, where it is particularly numerous, I have 
found duplicate eggs in more than one nest, and finding many other 
instances to have occurred for at least several years past, this fact must 
be acknowledged as a remarkable normal feature of the locality. 
Whether in most of these cases the pair of eggs are laid by one bird 
or two is a moot point: I incline to the former supposition, and find 
myself not singular herein, as Captain Thomas Brown, in his edition 
of White’s ‘Natural History of Selborne,’ 1835, pp. 81—87, after 
quoting the observations of a brother naturalist on the habits of the 
cuckoo, alludes to the discovery of two of its eggs in one nest as proof 
of the bird laying more than one, which some had doubted. This 
remark would lose all effect, but for the writer’s evident conviction 
that the eggs were the product of a single bird. We have all much 
to learn anent the breeding habits of this favourite visitant, and ought 
not to dogmatize on observations made in any single locality, which 
may be very far from presenting us with the whole truth. 
Again, do not the discrepancies above noted in the breeding habits 
of several of our sea-birds prove great latitude to be necessary in any 
professed definition of those outward circumstances so remarkably 
altering the cases? Evidently the tides, the temperature and the 
amount of wind or wet of the season must always, to some extent, be 
taken into account. 
H. Ecroyp Snir. 
Egremont, Birkenhead, September, 1864. 
The Decrease of Birds at Flamborough.—Every lover of Ornithology, when reading 
Colonel Newman’s article, in the October number of the ‘ Zoologist (Zool. 9292) must 
deplore with him the rapidly diminishing numbers of birds on Flamborough Cliffs, 
and he only re-echoes the long-standing regrets of every intelligent person in the 
district; but the causes he assigns them to, lead to erroneous conclusions. Colonel 
Newman attributes the decrease of late years to the “ taking of the eggs.” Passing 
over the observation of the birds breeding in April and May as of course but a lapsus 
calami, as it is too weil known the breeding season does not begin before June, it is a 
fact unquestioned by residents on the spot that this very partially arises “in conse- 
quence of the farmers allowing their eggs to be taken,” but from the wanton destruc- 
tion of the birds by the innumerable shooting parties (of which I regret to see Colonel 
Newman more than once a member), generally strangers tu the district, and brought 
down in a great measure by the facilities offered of late years by cheap trains from the 
West Riding and manufacturing counties, and of which every member who fancies 
himself a sportsman considers a gun, for the express purpose of “ shooting gulls at 
Flambro’,” a necessary part of his enjoyment. These people, by the incessant popping 
of guns, keep birds of naturally shy habits in a constant state of alarm, and not alone 
