1 66 Lloyd's natural history 



liberty, seeming quite dazed, and was only too easily retaken. 

 Again it was thrown up, and again it blundered, like an owl 

 exposed to the noonday sun, only much worse. We found 

 others, one of which I brought home alive ; they all behaved 

 in the same helpless way. We found their eggs, pure white 

 and very like the Puffin's, but without its obscure maculation. 

 These birds are so nocturnal in their habits that persons 

 familiar with the island by daylight only might live surrounded 

 by them and not suspect their presence. At night they come 

 out and are active enough. It is then that their singular weird 

 cry is uttered (why is the sea-bird's cry always melancholy ?). 

 I heard it as I lay awake in the tent. There was no noise of 

 wings, no evidence of living, when a ghostly voice said in 

 plaintive key, as of one who wei)t, ' Cuckolds in a row,' with 

 distinctest articulation ; and again, as distance softened down 

 its grief, ' Cuckolds in a row,' until, still further off, was echoed 

 back, as if it passed some door that closed behind, ' Cuckolds 

 in a row.' " 



Nest. — Saxby writes : — " In most cases, something of a nest 

 is made with pieces of dead plants or hay, but sometimes the 

 bare soil is thought sufficient. It now and then happens that 

 the nest is made far back in the deep crevice of a rock. Some 

 have asserted that the Shearwater lays only once in the season, 

 but my own observations lead me to the conclusion that a 

 second laying does take place; the bird, however, not pro- 

 ducing a new egg — it lays but one — immediately on being 

 robbed of the first, but waiting until the regular time, some 

 weeks later, when it will either use the old burrow, to which 

 it has returned occasionally in the interval, or will dig a new 

 one. After the egg has been taken the bird will often remain 

 in the nest for several days before finally resolving to quit. 

 The young bird will keep on the nest until long after it is fully 

 fledged, and in such circumstances becomes enormously fat, 

 and is thought a dainty by the fishermen, who eat it with much 

 relish." 



Eg-gs. — One, white. Axis, 2-3-265 inches; diam., 1-55- 



