RAVENS, CURLEWS, AND EIDER-DUCKS 131 



then there were more such risings and expressed 

 convictions. At intervals only, however, for it was 

 wonderful how still the young birds would lie for 

 quite a long time, and so closely inwoven within 

 the cup of the nest that it was only when they 

 stirred that five became a possibility. The ledge 

 being quite bare and open, the nest with the young 

 in it, making a black bull's - eye in the midst of a 

 great sheet of white, was conspicuously apparent. 

 Several times I saw the young birds move them- 

 selves backwards to the inner edge of the nest, and 

 then void their excrements over it, so that only a 

 little of the quite outer portion was contaminated. 

 By this means the nest is kept clean and dry, whilst 

 all around it is defiled. It would seem as though 

 this power of ejecting their excrements to a distance 

 which various birds possess was, sometimes at least, 

 in proportion to the size and bulk of the nest which 

 they construct. The nest of the shag, for instance 

 (and in a still greater degree that of the common 

 cormorant), is a great mass of seaweed and other 

 materials, and the force with which the excrement 

 is shot out over this, both by the young and the 

 parent birds, astonishes one, as does also its upward 

 direction. I had always felt surprise when seeing 

 cormorants and shags perform this natural function 

 whilst standing on the rocks, but it was not till I 

 had watched the latter birds for hour after hour, 

 as they sat on their nests, that I understood (or 

 thought I understood) the significance of it. In 

 spite of the popular saying, it does not seem prob- 

 able that all young birds act in this way, and 

 many nests are so constructed that it would hardly 



