138 SPRING 



seat. Petrels and shearwaters are also very buoyant fliers, 

 and spend most of their time upon the wing. But the 

 auk family not only avoid the land, except at nesting-time, 

 as do the gannets and petrels, but spend by far the greater 

 part of their time either rocked on the waves or diving 

 beneath them. Their wings are small in proportion to 

 their size, and are as useful for paddles in swimming as 

 for flying. In the great auk the atrophy of the wings 

 had gone so far that the bird could not fly at all ; and 

 then it paid the penalty by extermination at the hands 

 of its human enemies. The other members of the family 

 fly swiftly enough, with the straight whizzing flight of the 

 dipper or kingfisher on inland brooks ; but they have none 

 of the gull's power of circling or easy floating, and are, 

 in fact, poor performers upon the wing. Their real home 

 is the water, and they only repair to land because they 

 cannot nest upon the face of the waters, as the halcyon 

 was fabled to do in the old Greek stories. As soon as the 

 young can swim, and before they can fly, the troops of 

 birds begin to leave the coasts, and they are not seen at 

 their nesting-places between late summer and the time 

 of their reappearance in spring. They keep clear of the 

 immediate neighbourhood of the shore, and wander far out 

 at sea, except when stormy weather occasionally drives 

 them inland. 



In their nesting habits these cliff-birds vary greatly, 

 and the diversity of their nests and eggs increases the 

 interest of their contrasted plumage and movements in and 

 on the water. Guillemots and razorbills make no nest 

 whatever, but lay their eggs on the open rock-shelves, 

 or among broken boulders and in crevices. Common 

 guillemots and razorbills lay only one egg, but the smaller 

 black guillemot has two or sometimes three. The eggs 



