Abstract
A VERY interesting and beautifully illustrated account of the birds frequenting the chalk cliffs of Bempton,. Yorkshire, and of the egging industry carried on by the natives, appears in part i. of the Transactions of the Hull Scientific and Field Naturalists' Club. The author, Mr. E. W. Wade, commences by waxing enthusiastic over the wonderful sight presented by these precipitous cliffs where they are visited in spring and summer, by swarms of sea-birds, among which guillemots are now predominant. In; ionner days the bird-life appears, however, to have been even more abundant than at the present day, this being especially the case with regard to kittiwakes, which were once found in thousands where there are now hundreds. So numerous, indeed, were these birds that there is a recon of the heaps of twitch left in a field on a Saturday to hocarted on the Monday having been carried off in the mean-time by the gulls for nest building. The usual ruthless massacres of the old days were, however, responsible for so reducing the numbers of these birds that they were well-nigh exterminated by the time the Protection Acts onc more gave them a chance.
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L., R. The Birds of Bempton Cliffs . Nature 67, 472–473 (1903). https://doi.org/10.1038/067472b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/067472b0