1(>2 T,F,TTRRS OF AN OUNri'intl.OOIST. 



must be procured at exactly the right time; and from the uncertainty of 

 the weather it is not always possible to get them. Last year, for instance, 

 being a week too late, out of nearly every PuflBn's and Black Guillemot's 

 hole, instead of an egg, I extracted an unpleasantly soft, downy, dirty, little 

 object, which I was glad to return again, receiving for my pains a furious 

 nip from the old one; and a Puffin's bite is really no joke; it is as bad as 

 a Parrot's, and he holds on like a bull-dog. The most cautious mode of 

 proceeding, when you wish to take up a live Puffin, is to give him a gentle 

 tap on the head to confuse him, and quickly grasp him round the neck 

 before he has time to catch your fingers. But one cannot be cruel to a 

 J'uffin, for his comical look would make a (!!ynic laugh. 



I have not met with the Sandw ich Tern here at all, though the Common 

 and Arctic Terns, especially the latter, breed in profusion, so that we use 

 their eggs as an article of food; but I will keep a watch for it next year. 

 The Hooded Crow's eggs are most numerous, as these odious birds are most 

 extraordinarily abundant, and they are very persevering in nestling, although 

 their nests and eggs are continually destroyed. Last year I witnessed a very 

 striking instance of this, for, finding a nest, I waited till it contained five 

 eggs, and then took them. A few days after I examined it, and found 

 three eggs, which I took, and destroyed the nest. About a fortnight later I 

 found a new nest built not a gun-shot from the old situation, containing four 

 eggs, which the hen was hatching. From the lateness of the season, as well 

 as the proximity of the situation, I hailed her as my persevering old friend. 



I am informed on undoubted authority, that it is a common trick for young 

 people to remove the Ploody's eggs, and replace them with Bantam's eggs 

 slightly rubbed with indigo, which the Crow hatches most faithfully; only 

 they must be removed immediately from the nest, before the foster-mother 

 has time to destroy her spurious brood. I have so far witnessed this experiment, 

 that four small Hen's eggs, which I placed in a nest, were most faithfully 

 covered by the Crow for ten days, when unfortunately they were taken away 

 by a mischievous boy. A much more cruel trick is that of boiling the 

 eggs hard to prevent their being hatched, and consequently the poor bird 

 sits on them till she gets so exhausted as to be incapable of flying, and so 

 falls alive into the hands of her young tormentors. A young one taken from 

 the nest becomes a useful garden scavenger, destroying all kinds of injurious 

 insects. 



J hope to get some new eggs this season, by setting the boys on the search 

 among the moors over in Mull; but it is not easy to get the people to 

 understand why yoii want eggs. An egg collector in the Highlands must go 

 armed with a roll of tobacco in one pocket, and halfpence and lozenges in 

 the other; the one for shepherds, the otlier for herd-boys, and then he will 

 gain their sympathy and good-will. St. John, in his "Tour in Sutherland," 

 when inquiring about an Eagle's nest of an old shepherd, breaks out into a 

 lamentaticui upon the reserve of the llighlanders, '^vho seem to have a 



