444 ENGLISH BIRD LIFE 



vals, find either a settled resort or a regular summer 

 habitation for the rearing of their young. In the 

 Shetlands, for example, a number of the less 

 familiar species, mingling \vith hosts of the com- 

 moner forms, mav be seen in the course of a single 

 summer's day. 



As one sails up the sunlit Voe, leaving the stiff 

 squares of potatoes and wheat and the little white 

 school-house on the mainland far behind, a grass}^- 

 topped island is reached. On the nearer side the 

 land slopes almost to the water's edge, but front- 

 ing the sea it rises in a sheer precipice five hundred 

 feet or more in height, at the base of which isolated 

 stacks and pinnacles of rock, splintered in innumer- 

 able strange forms, rise from the surf. 



In every tiny bay and harbour which give partial 

 respite from the beat of the sea, little parties of 

 " Tysties," or Black Guillemots, are swimming to 

 and fro. The old birds, with their deep black 

 plumage and broad bar of white across the wings, 

 mav easilv be distinguished from the white- 

 freckled birds of the year even at a considerable 

 distance. Now one dives suddenly, and at times 

 may be seen literallv flying under Avater, the beat- 

 ing of the pinions having much more to do with 

 his propulsion than the strokes of his red-webbed 

 feet; now he appears again at some unlooked-for 

 place as though nothing had happened, and rises 

 erect in the water to beat the wave-drops from his 

 shining wings. 



The Black Guillemot differs from others of its 

 race in that it lavs two eggs. These are of a white 

 ground colour, spotted and streaked with black and 



