NESTS AND EGGS. 391 
any one who may be standing near, to make sure that there is no 
enemy watching her. What pleasure may be enjoyed by those 
who study Nature! We are assured that the plover, “If she sees 
a child or a dog approach her nest, does not wait for their arrival, 
but advances resolutely ; then suddenly takes flight, with a loud 
cry, as if surprised upon her eggs, when in fact they may be thirty 
paces off. Then she will flutter and let one wing fall; or she will 
run dragging a leg; in fact, will actually feign lameness, till she 
has decoyed the intruder to a safe distance from her nest, and thus 
averted the danger.” 
Collecting eggs forms a branch of considerable industry in many 
countries. The poor inhabitants of the Faroe Isles feed on the 
eggs of almost all the waterfowl which frequent their shores. They 
eat the young chicks also, and the parent birds when they can 
manage to catch them. They will hang by a rope, at the peril of 
their lives, or climb the perpendicular sides of the rocks, or walk 
along the narrowest ledges, on which the birds make their nests. 
In this perilous position one false step must be inevitable death ; 
and every year many of the Faroese fall victims to this dangerous 
sport. This pursuit may be carried on without danger in a canoe. 
The fowler takes a conical-shaped net, not unlike those used to 
catch butterflies, but it is woven of wool, and consequently stronger. 
As these birds are not wild they suffer themselves to be approached ; 
the net is thrown over their heads, they are entangled in it, and 
easily caught. In this way birds swimming on the surface of the 
water, or fishing on the rocks, can be seized with equal facility. 
But the greatest number of birds are to be found on the craggy 
points of the steep rock. In order to reach these, parties of at 
least four men set out together. One armed with a pole, at the 
end of which is a small horizontal shelf, pushes his companion up 
to the level of a ledge, who then hoists him up with a rope. There 
they seize the birds as they are brooding, or catch them with the 
nets as they fly off their nests. They partly kill them and throw 
them to the men below, who stand ready in a boat under the cliff. 
In this way they go from point to point, and often in a few hours 
catch hundreds of birds. 
The most profitable though the most dangerous of all methods 
