38G THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Two of old Londesborough's sons belp him with the ropes, but do not 

 climb. Wilkinson's skill in this direction is certainly well worth seeing ; 

 he is, moreover, very willing to give information about birds, and reasonable 

 in his charges for the eggs he gets. He has taken two clutches of four 

 Kitti wakes' eggs this year, which he had not done before. All the climbers 

 (I discussed the subject with three different parties) are agreed that August 

 1st is much too early to begin shooting the seafowl, and that many young 

 birds are starved upon the cliffs by the old ones being killed ; they would 

 gladly see the close-time extended to Sept. 1st. Of the eggs, nearly fifty 

 in number, which I collected between the 12th and 18th of June, nearly 

 every one was fresh, two Puffins' being the only ones at all incubated ; 

 allowing the birds to sit about a month, and the young to remain on the 

 cliffs three weeks longer, one nviy calculate that during the first ten days 

 of August the ledges will be covered with unfledged birds. An extension 

 of the close-time, even to the 12th or 20th of August, would be a great 

 thing, the greater part of the butchery taking place on the first Monday of 

 the month — a Bank Holiday. Wilkinson told me he thought there had 

 been rather less shooting during the last two summers, since one of the 

 slaughterers had contributed to the number of the slain by blowing his head 

 nearly off. Whatever expression of regret this accident may have caused 

 elsewhere, there was but little among the climbers, as it is very hard for 

 these men to see the creatures they speak of almost affectionately as " our 

 birds" cruelly and wantonly killed by scores at the very time when their 

 attendance on their young makes them the easiest possible victims. The 

 climbers pay the farmers whose land runs up to the edge of the cliff for the 

 privilege of collecting eggs; their work is risky and laborious; and if 

 anvthing could be done by Yorkshire naturalists to bring about the better 

 protection of the birds whose eggs are like a harvest to them, I am sure 

 they would be grateful for such intervention. — Julian G. Tuck (Tostock 

 llectory, Bury St. Edmunds). 



Notes from Brecon. — A nearly white Swift, which has appeared near 

 this town for the last three years, was not seen this summer. I could have 

 shot it easily for the British Museum, as 1 do not recollect seeing a white 

 Swift in their case of albinos ; I am rather sorry now I did not, as I fear 

 we shall see it no more. Last year, in July, a boy asked me to come and 

 look at a young bird he had picked up near the town ; it had only recently 

 left the nest, and was unable to fly. I found it was a young Hawfinch. I 

 told the boy what it fed on, and it is alive at the present time, a splendid 

 cock-bird. I think this fact worth mentioning, as it proves that the Hawfinch 

 sometimes breeds in this county, a fact of which I was not certain before. 

 A curious grey variety of the Tawny Owl was killed at Frwdgrech, Brecon, 

 in the spring of this year, and is in the possession of Capt. Swainson. I 

 had the pleasure of comparing the Cirl Bunting he killed with a specimen 



