NOTES ON THE BIRDS OF ST. KILDA 147 



a handful. It comes early in February, and for a while at 

 first acts very strangely. For three days in succession it 

 will come regularly at daybreak to the rocks where it intends 

 to breed. For the next three days none will return, but 

 remain at sea. This it will generally do regularly, but there 

 are occasions on which it will depart from this curious habit. 

 About the middle of May it lays a single large egg on the 

 bare rock. Their eggs are very pear-shaped, which keeps 

 them from rolling off the sloping ledges. Even as it is, 

 if these birds are disturbed and forced to rise from the nest 

 many of the eggs will roll over. However, only on such 

 rare occasions is the egg ever left in danger. Ordinarily, 

 before the one bird rises the other bird has got secure 

 possession of the egg. They hatch for five weeks, and then 

 feed the chick on the rock for two or three weeks. After 

 this they take it down to the sea. As the chick is not 

 nearly fledged, and the nest is in the more inaccessible 

 ledges often far from the sea, it is not apparently an easy 

 matter to get it down, and must cost the parents many an 

 anxious thought. If the ledge overlooks the sea there is no 

 difficulty : the parent bird simply entices it to the edge of 

 the rock and then pushes it over. But this is not often the 

 case. Generally the ledge is so high up and so situated 

 that it cannot be got down in this simple way. The parent 

 bird in these circumstances takes a great deal of trouble to 

 entice the chick on to her back ; but if this fails she seems to 

 get impatient, seizes it in her bill and puts it there. Imme- 

 diately she flies seaward, and by the time that she has got 

 well over the sea, either she drops it or it falls off. It is 

 very rarely indeed that she does not get it down safely. 

 For the next ten days the parents spend a good deal of 

 time teaching it to swim, dive, and forage for itself. When 

 its education is finished they all go away, and if they have 

 been allowed to hatch their first laid eggs this will be about 

 the first of August. These birds are caught in either of two 

 ways. Early in the season, when it has been ascertained 

 that it is their day on shore, two men will go to a likely 

 place, and as soon as the birds have left the rocks in the 

 twilight one of the men will lower the other by a rope to 

 the ledges which they have observed to be most thickly 



