102 



WILD NATURE'S WAYS. 



hole through which I had just crept^ and went 

 his \\'ay, 



Tn ten minutes the skua came back with the 

 evident intention of dropping on to her nest 

 right away, but catching sight of the lens peeping 

 from beneath a shaggy eyebrow of heather on 

 the side of the artificial knowe, she sheered off, and 

 thought the matter over maturely whilst crouching 



SKUA GOING ON TO HEP? NEST. 



out of the wind behind a knoll thirty yards to 

 leeward. Half an hour afterwards she tried again, 

 but when she saw, in the slightly altered language 

 of the poet, 



" The great cyclops with one eye 

 Staring to threaten and defy," 



her heart failed her, and she alighted a few yards 

 away, and, like the females of many other ground- 

 builders, when afraid to venture on their nests, 



