The Zoologist — Novembek, 1871. 2825 



Of the birds which each summer visit these cliffs, the puffin is 

 the last to arrive in the spring, and the latest to depart in the 

 autumn. I have rarely seen them before the middle of April, the 

 main body, as a rule, not arriving at their various breeding-stations 

 till May : Mr. Bailey, of Flamborough, informs me that he has 

 known some off the coast as early as the middle of February. 

 Before the end of August they will have packed together and gone 

 southward : now, as soon as the sun is well up, namely about eight 

 or nine in the morning, the puffins, excepting the few who have 

 young to feed on the rocks, go far out to sea, returning only in the 

 evening to the cliff. The razorbills, kitliwake-guUs and guillemots, 

 also at this season go out seaward during the day, returning at 

 sun-down. If the close time was extended for another fortnight it 

 would on this coast amount to a virtual prohibition of all shooting, 

 as the bulk of the sea-fowl will have left by the middle of the 

 month, and even by the first of August they are comparatively out 

 of danger, for it is then only either early in the morning or late in 

 the evening that any execution can be done : during the middle of 

 the day they are miles from land, and consequently at the same 

 time out of reach of the inevitable excursionist, numbers of whom 

 have this season also been prevented harrying the sea-birds from a 

 disinclination to take out the ten-shilling gun license. There were 

 much fewer shooters than I expected to see, and, considering the 

 immense number of birds, very little execution done. The Act, 

 with some exceptions, has given general satisfaction : I think I may 

 say that nearly all, however they may differ as to the special 

 provisions of the Act, agree in this, that it was time something was 

 done to check the reckless and indiscriminate daily slaughter, 

 throughout the summer months, of the sea-birds — a main source of 

 which was shooting matches for wagers. The dissentients, as may 

 naturally be expected, are the plume-makers, and those who 

 supplied them with birds. The boatmen also complain that the 

 Act has done them no good, and to a certain extent deprived them 

 of their summer earnings ; there are not now those boat-loads of 

 shooters daily leaving the north landing to slaughter and destroy, 

 and who usually paid well for the use of the boat — not too well, 

 considering the risk the owner ran from the random firing of his 

 excited freight. 



On the other hand, I was told by one of the boatmen that he 

 thought he had never in any previous season taken so many people 



