14 
taken for the supply of thousands at a time,” the utmost limit of 
ruffianism was reached when live birds were found “ floating help- 
less on the water, with both wings violently torn off!!” Surely 
the time had arrived when Parliament was bound to interfere to 
stay such barbarity, and the petitions of naturalists and philan- 
thropists throughout the kingdom for the enactment of a “ close 
time” for these wretched birds, acquired a double weight from the 
fact that, on the Yorkshire coast, they had received the name of 
“ Flamborough Pilots,” their mingling cries, even on the darkest 
and most stormy nights, warning the mariner from too near ap- 
proach to those rocky headlands. The fishermen, also, on the same 
coast, recognised the services of these birds, as unerring guides to 
the most productive fishing grounds. 
The provisions of this bill, —which was warmly supported in 
the House of Commons by all the members for this city and county, 
and by Lord Sondes, and other local peers, in the Upper House, — 
applied but little to the birds of Norfolk; but, amongst others, 
protection was extended to the Grebes of our inland waters, and to 
the two or three sj)ocies of Terns that still breed on our sea coast. 
Unfortmiately, a clause originally inserted for the preservation of 
eggs, as weU as birds, was thrown out in the House of Lords, 
thereby, as regards those last-named, materially impairing its bene- 
fits ; since, unquestionably, the wholesale system of egging, carried 
on in this county, in years gone by, has done almost as much as 
gunners and enterprising agriculturists put together, to banish 
certain species from their former haunts. To the rock birds the 
omission of this clause was comparatively unimportant, the dangers 
attending the gathering of their eggs being a sufficient protection 
so long as their numbers were not sensibly diminished by other 
means. But I may instance the fact of three dozen eggs of the 
Common Tern {Sterna liirundo ) — which is anything but common 
now on our coast — having been sent to Norwich a year or two ago 
from one locality oidy, as showing the necessity for some protec- 
tion in this respect. At Salthouse also, a few years since, an 
ancient colony of the Lesser Tern {Sterna minuta,) was all but 
exterminated by a stranger who landed on the beach and shot every 
