68 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



stated that the Tystie unlike the Common Guillemot- 

 deposits two or three eggs. In a cleft of the rock I could 

 see five single eggs, and later single chicks, and conclude 

 they were the offspring of ten different parents. As soon as 

 the young are able to reach the sea they and the parents 

 leave the vicinity of the rocks. Where a few weeks earlier 

 it was common to see twenty or thirty old birds, by the end 

 of August only a single one was seen. On the water 

 Black Guillemots have a peculiar trait of " lining up " * in 

 straight lines, and are never (for any length of time) 

 scattered singly here and there. Their rapid flight, and beat 

 of the white-banded wings as they fly from rock to rock, very 

 much resembles that of a large butterfly, while, if alarmed, 

 they will sit at their nesting-hole mewing like a young 

 kitten. 



Rock-Pigeons inhabit the caves in hundreds all the year 

 round. There are several very large white birds seen among 

 them, probably tame birds which have associated with the 

 blues, though there are no dovecots in the neighbourhood. 



o o 



In April they may be seen plucking and carrying the 

 succulent green shoots of rock plants, which one would 

 think are more of an edible than a nest-building material. 

 A young nearly full-fledged bird, with downy feathers still 

 attached, was seen early in August. This, I presume, had 

 been a bird of the second or third brood of the year. 



One pair of Hooded Crows has nested on the most 

 inaccessible peak for the last three years, and have always 

 managed to rear a brood, though, on account of their 

 depredations among lambs and poultry, the population have 

 been up in arms against these grey marauders. 



Several scores of Starlings begin to nest in March, and 

 as late broods took wing in September, some of them at 

 least must rear two broods in the season. They nest in, 

 and occupy at night for shelter, the same clefts of rock as 

 do Tysties, with which they seem to live on the best of 

 terms. A few common Sparrows also breed on rocks near 

 the dwelling-houses. These were feeding a fledged brood in 



1 [A trait in their behaviour curiously enough not remembered by me. I have 

 rarely if ever (?) seen them except singly, in pairs, or perhaps triplets. Though 

 I have seen quite a colony of 100 pairs. T-A.H.-B.] 



