Bombardment of Hartlepool, Whitby and Scarborough. 97, 
The guns were heard very distinctly at Wetherby, which is about 
60 miles from Scarborough, and considerably further from Whitby 
and Hartlepool. The pheasants were more highly excited than 
ever I have seen them before. 
Yours etc., H. HEBDEN. 
Ingmanthorpe, Wetherby, Dec. 21st, 1914. 
The firing was heard last Wednesday, the 16th inst., between 8 
and 9 a.m. in Leeming Bar, Bedale, and in the parish of Thornton 
Watlass. The last-named place is about 47 miles from Scarborough 
and about 44 from Whitby. The Hambleton Hills are between, 
these three places and the coast. The guns were also heard at 
a place about a mile south-west of Thornton village, and a man 
remarked it to a friend at the time, and also said that the pheasants 
were making a great noise, and showed signs of much uneasiness. 
Bedale, Dec. 22nd, 1914. NOUS SUG, (Ce I 
Mr. T. Penrith, Winton, distinctly heard the East Coast bom- 
bardment, at, as nearly as he can fix it, 8-30 a.m. Winton is in 
Westmorland, at the western foot of the Pennines, and about 
half-a-dozen miles from the summit of the famous Maiden Castle 
Pass, though which the Darlington and Tebay railway passes. 
Yours etc., JAS. SAGAR. 
Winton, Kirkby Stephen, Dec. 22nd, ror4. 
Guns were heard here and the same effect on the pheasants noticed. 
The distances are—Hartlepool 36 miles, Whitby 47, and Scarborough 
54. Those from Wetherby are—Hartlepool 52 miles, Whitby 
481 miles, and Scarborough 46} miles. Desultory firing was also. 
heard this morning. 
Yours etc., JOHN MAUGHAN. 
Jervaulx, Middleham, Yorks., Dec. 23rd, rorq. 
I have since learnt that the sound was heard beyond 
Fellbeck, in the Pateley Bridge direction, and 60 miles west 
of the bombarded towns. At the time it was attributed to 
blasting operations at the Bolton Abbey quarries. Possibly 
the same idea may have kept back other observations from 
further west. There are several places among the Pennines 
whence the sound of blasting is regularly coming. At Gilling 
West, near Richmond, the sounds were very distinctly heard, 
and there was considerable vibration of windows and doors ; 
and the atmospheric waves caused similar effects at Cayton, 
near Ripley, in the Nidd valley district. 
The distances at which the guns were heard make one 
interesting item in these observations, but perhaps the behavi- 
our of the birds (and probably of other animals) is of even more 
concern to naturalists. The pheasants around here suddenly 
dropped from their perches (day had just dawned), and ran 
about in a state of abject terror, their behaviour being markedly 
‘different from what it is under their ordinary circumstances 
of fear. 
Whether this indicates some abnormal excitation of such 
of their senses as we are capable of understanding by means. 
1915 Mar. 1. : 
