PLAMBOROUGH HEAD. 33 



The egging-season lasts five weeks, and ends about the 21st of June. 

 The dimbers rather hke wet weather, because when it is fine the Guillemots 

 often lay their eggs out at sea. I was informed that about a week before 

 my first visit a trawler had brought six into Burlington Quay, and that it 

 was a very common thing for them to find them in their nets *. The eggs 

 are deposited on such narrow ledges that the old Guillemots often knock 

 them off; but I cannot seriously believe that when they begin to sit 

 they knock them ofl^ on purpose. I do not understand why they are 

 sometimes so dirty when brought up ; for I believe that at Flamborough 

 they do not deposit them in foul places. 



Let us now hear the evidence of old Lowney (the Methuselah of cliff- 

 climbers, the intrepid veteran of forty years), who has taken, perhaps, not far 

 short of a million eggs. He tells ofi^ the ornithologists that he has sent eggs to 

 in his day, the Ringed Guillemot's eggs (or " Silver-eyed Skouts," as he calls 

 them) that he has taken at their desire from under the birds themselves, the 

 three double-yelked Guillemot's eggsf, and the fourteen red Guillemot's eggs 

 which in seven consecutive years he took from one particular spot, known 

 only to him by a dip in the stone. Gravely the old man rebuts our statement 

 that the Great Auk has never been seen at his cliffs. It was at Flamborough, 

 he tells us, for two seasons following, and kept always near the same place, 

 but never mounted onto the cliff. Who will venture to say that he is not 

 right ? 



Lowney has seen two Guillemots fight, like a pair of gladiators, until 

 the rocks which were their arena were dyed with their gore. He is quite 



* We have^ in our collection, an egg which was dredged up at Lowestoft at a depth 

 of 24 fathoms. 



t He showed me a double-yelked Razorbill's egg, which he had at his house, measuring 

 7 inches in circumference. 



VOL,. III. F 



