Something about Sea Birds. 31 



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view of the amiable company, from which a stench arose 

 almost enough to suffocate us. There were young ones of all 

 sizes, some almost ready to fly, some only covered with down; 

 some nests had one or two eggs, which are very small in pro- 

 portion to the size of the bird, and of a dirty white colour : 

 many hens were sitting, and here and there a solitary old 

 cock (the crested corvorant of Bewick) was perched on his 

 triple support of tail and feet, contemplating the expanse of 

 ocean, as motionless as a statue. One of the party now de- 

 termined on the hazardous experiment of leaning over the 

 cliff and shooting them as they sat; the other two remon- 

 strated, but to no purpose : so a line was formed ; the first 

 held tight the coat tails of the shooter, the others locked 

 hand in hand; thus making a dead weight of four against one, 

 in case of any propensity on the part of the first to lose his 

 balance. Thus arranged, the adventurer shouldered his double- 

 barrelled, and, actually bending over the cliff, he pulled the 

 trigger. An old corvorant fell five hundred feet down the cliff, 

 upon the little narrow beach before mentioned ; another 

 trigger was pulled, and down went another corvorant. The 

 shooter then exchanged guns with him who held him by the 

 coat tails, and with each barrel of this he also sent a corvo- 

 rant to the bottom; so there were four, as we supposed, quietly 

 waiting our return. Emboldened by this success, we pro- 

 ceeded more than a mile along the top of the cliff, continually 

 peeping over. We discovered two nests of the black-headed 

 gull, each with four eggs, of an olive brown colour, with 

 darker spots: the nests are made of dried grass and fern. But 

 the greatest curiosity we observed was the nestless and soli- 

 tary egg of the razorbill, balanced, as if by a geometrician, on 

 the bare rock, and looking as though the least puff of wind 

 would blow it off its station into the sea. We learned from 

 the fishermen, and some boys of the neighbourhood, that the 

 puffins never expose their eggs, like the corvorants, razor- 

 bills, guillemots, and gulls, but lay them at the end of long 

 holes, which they hollow out of the softer parts of the rock. 

 We bought a few of these eggs to bring home; they were 

 dirty white, with darker spots. 



After having satisfied our curiosity here, we returned to 

 our boat, and, crossing Alum Bay, we again passed through 

 the Needles, and pulled in for the beach at Sun Corner, 

 where the corvorants had fallen. Three were quite dead, the 

 fourth had got into the water, and was swimming about in 

 style. We chased him more than an hour, firing at him about 

 forty times, but to no purpose, as he dived the instant the 

 trigger was pulled : at last we very reluctantly gave up the 



