500 Prof. Newton on the 



(^Halichcervs gnjpns) basking in the sunshine on its margin, 

 and then follows a low grassy shore, with some sandy beaches 

 — pleasant enough to look upon, especially as there were 

 plenty of birds of various kinds about, but not promising 

 for our particular object. However, I did not lose faith in 

 the vision of sloping slabs which I bad had from tlic other 

 end five years before ; and as we proceeded the prospect of 

 them began to open out, until at last, when we arrived 

 opposite to them, ray expectations in regard to the suitableness 

 were (as seldom happens) surpassed. Completely protected 

 from the westward, and sufficiently from the northward, by 

 the larger island, Papa Westray itself, and having on the east 

 the higher land of the Holm, which towards its northern end, 

 ''the How,"*^ rises to form a lowish cliff, there was a broad 

 expanse of shelving rock dipping down to the water's edge 

 and continued beneath the sea at the same slope. Here would 

 be room for a regiment of Auks to have landed at any state of 

 the tide^, and to have marched in line up the gentle ascent 

 so far as they wished to go, even to the very turf-covered 

 soil of the islet, while some three or four deep chasms running 

 inward, at right angles to the flaky slabs, would serve on 

 occasion to diminish the length of the laud-journey to any 

 aspiring Auk, or to facilitate the escape of one threatened 

 by danger. The surface of the sloping shelves, which 

 form a series of steps, each only a few inches high, and 

 succeed each other with great regularity, is even at the lower 

 part singularly unencumbered by seaweed. On the shelves 

 in places there is a good number of more or less water woru 

 stones, doubtless cast up from time to time by winter storms, 

 and some of them are huge oblong blocks, twelve or fifteen feet 

 in length and from a foot to eighteen inches across. Others 

 are more rounded, and these last are piled in a ridge through 

 which at intervals, wherever there is any soil washed down 

 from above, the vegetation of the islet makes its way ; but 

 tliere is nothing that would really obstruct my imaginary 

 regiment from advancing almost in line, as the obstacles 



* At the yoiith-eastprn end of the Il<ilni, the Admiralty fhart marks 

 " Very little tide." 



