13 • FLAMBOROUGH HEAD. 



Vicar of Morwenstow, the Rev. Robert Stephen Hawker, of whom it is 

 related by Mr. S. Baring-Gould that, in order " to obtain Rooks, he w-ent 

 into his chancel, and, kneeling before the altar, besought God to give him a 

 rookery where he wanted." 



One is curious to know if he did get it — when, reading on, we find that 

 " the colony of Rooks subsists to this day." 



Perhaps one would hardly go the length of the vicar ; but then, having 

 always lived under a rookery, the writer is hardly able to judge of the 

 intensity of the desire for such a thing. 



The vicar, however, is quite beaten by those Christians in Persia who 

 turned Mahometans for the sole purpose of being allowed to keep Pigeons, 

 which as Christians they were not permitted to do. This is quoted by 

 Mr. Harting ('Ornithology of Shakespeare,' p. 182) from Tavernier, 1677. 



In Allen's ' History of the County of York ' (vol. ii. p. 312) we find : — 

 " The cliff^s at Flamborough are of tremendous grandeur, and from a 

 hundred to a hundred and fifty yards in perpendicular height. They are 

 composed of a mouldering limestone rock, of a snowy whiteness, and 

 periodically covered with an astonishing number of birds, remarkable for the 

 variety and brilliancy of their plumage." 



At the foot of the cliffs are certain caverns : — the principal is Robin 

 Lyth's Hole, thought to have been named after a smuggler or pirate; 

 Dovecot, the breeding-place of Rock- Pigeons ; Kirk-hole, said to extend 

 from the shore under the church (but this is doubtful) ; &c. 



Of the spires of rock, the most remarkable are "the Matron" and the 

 " King and Queen." 



3 



According to Murray, the birds choose the north side of the cliff to 



