Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 3 (1899).djvu/29

Rh curtailed. Its nest is to be found in varying and odd situations, and in the spring of 1894 I noticed, during a long visit to North Wales, chiefly for ornithological purposes, that a very favourite site for it was not only on but in banks. I was staying at Llanuwchllyn, a village prettily situated near the southern shore of Bala Lake, and it was almost impossible for anyone who possesses a keen eye for birds' nests to stroll along the charming lanes thereabouts without remarking those of Song-Thrushes so located. Children journeying to and from school twice a day along these lanes made sad havoc of all kinds of nests, but it struck me that the poor confiding Song-Thrushes fared the worst at their hands, not even excepting Blackbirds and Robin Redbreasts. The wantonness with which nests were torn from their picturesque sites, and the eggs flung broken on the ground, fairly made my blood boil on many an occasion; while I ascertained that the little girls were every whit as bad as the boys. If masters and mistresses of village schools throughout the kingdom—for I have little reason to doubt that the wantonness complained of is pretty general—would take upon themselves to impress on the youthful mind the cruelty involved in robbing birds' nests wholesale without any set or scientific purpose, and would further impress the moral by a little salutary correction on the youthful bodies of hardened offenders, the result would be far more conducive to the peace and happiness of the birds themselves, and infinitely less harrowing to the feelings of those who from a genuine and deep-rooted love of their subject make the avifauna of these islands the all-engrossing study of a lifetime.

That some such restrictions in the matter would not be without general and good effect is shown, I think, by a visit I once paid to the Bempton cliffs, on the Yorkshire coast—between Bridlington and Filey—in order to watch the gathering of the Common Guillemots' eggs, and make a selection of quaintly-marked and uncommon specimens for my own collection. On this occasion I was accompanied by my wife, who takes as keen a delight in birdsnesting as myself, and is wonderfully "smart" at finding eggs; and as we walked along the main road from Bempton station to the cliffs, we noticed several nests of different species, containing eggs, in most exposed situations, and were, moreover, not a little struck by the fact that the children we