on Rambles among ihe Wild Birds. 65


stiff breeze the rain-water found its way through every garment,

wetting us to the skin and leaving the sandwiches limp and

sodden in our pockets- “ A pleasant ramble indeed ! ” someone

will say; but the bird enthusiast is not kept indoors by the

vagaries of the weather. What we saw on those cliffs amply

repaid us for dripping garments and even for sitting more than

three hours, waterlogged, on the homeward journey.


What are the chalk cliffs of Yorkshire? Few bird-lovers

need to ask the question. Their fame reaches far and wide.

Look at a geological map of England and you will see that the

chalk formation running across England from Dorset to Norfolk,

with branches to Dover and Beach)'' Head, is continued along the

Lincolnshire Wolds into Yorkshire and faces the North Sea at

Flamborougli Head with a magnificent rampart extending for

some eleven miles along the coast, and rising in places to an

elevation of well over 400 feet. The grandeur of this white wall

alone repays the trouble of a visit, but it was the desire to see the

teeming bird-population of the cliffs that urged us on to battle

with the unfavourable elements on that day in mid-June. Seven

miles of cliffs thickly populated with rock-birds ! Is not that

sight good enough to make up for much personal discomfort?


As we walked along those chalk cliffs stretching from

Flamborougli Head Lighthouse towards Filey, four species of

birds were much in evidence. These were Guillemots, Puffins,

Razorbills and Kittiwakes. The first-mentioned species was by

far the most numerous, the Puffins coming next in point of

numbers. The sea, hundreds of feet below, was dotted over with

the rock-birds, of which, numbers were constantly hurrying in

front of the cliff face or dashing with that peculiar swift flight

to or from the sea, while from time to time a perfect avalanche of

startled birds would pour headlong from a ledge of the cliffs

into the waves which lashed the boulders below. The stiff sea

breeze buffeted the birds when on the wing and seemed to in¬

convenience their flight considerably, sometimes blowing them

right over in the air and turning them from the course they had

shaped towards some favourite ledge. Sometimes they would

hang in the air against the wind a few feet from the cliff top, so

close to us that it seemed we could catch them in a butterfly net;



