396 BRITISH BIRDS. 



With a cool head the dangers attached to '^climming" are very slight 

 indeed ; the real danger consists in pieces of the rock becoming detached 

 and falling on the unfortunate dimmer. Old Lowney, the Methuselah of 

 cliff-clinihcrs, the veteran of forty years amongst these awful cliffs^ told 

 me how he had " cluni " for six-and-thirty years, and had met with only 

 one really serious accident. A piece of rock, about half the size of his 

 head, detached itself some thirty feet above him, and, though he saw it 

 coming, he could not get out of its way ; if it had fallen on his head it 

 must inevitably have dashed his brains out, but he put up his arm to 

 protect himself. His arm was not broken, but the muscle was absolutely 

 torn from the bone, and it was nearly two yeai^s before he could raise it to 

 his head again. He divides his ground into three days' work, so that he 

 takes it all twice a week, when weather permits ; in very wet and windy 

 weather he does not "clim.'^ Operations commence about the 11th of 

 May. For the first nine days he has a good run of eggs, as the birds that 

 breed on the ledges he visits have most of them laid ; for the next nine 

 days eggs are scarce. At the end of that time a second cg^ has been laid 

 by the birds whose eggs he took during the first nine dajs, and he has a 

 second run of successful collecting. He considers from two to three 

 hundred eggs a day a good take. He has then a second nine days' 

 " slack,'' and after that comes his midsummer '' fling " or " shut," as he 

 comically expresses it. This is a very precarious one, and in some seasons 

 is not worth the getting, whilst in others it is nearly equal to the first two 

 takes. This veteran *' dimmer" is of opinion that the Guillemot never 

 lays more than two eggs in a season ; and his opinion is of some value, as 

 it is certainly much easier to obtain accurate information respecting the 

 habits of birds at a place like Flamborough, where they are scattered 

 over some miles of cliffs, than at the Fame Islands, where they are 

 crowded togctlier in a dense mass on only four rocks. He also thinks that 

 each bird frequents the same ledge year after year, and lays the same 

 coloured egg every year, althovigh the variety of colour in the eggs of 

 different birds is so wonderfully great. He told me that he used to get a 

 very rare and highly-prized variety, of an almost uniform rich reddish- 

 brown colour, on a certain ledge twice every year, which continued for 

 fifteen years in succession, after which the poor bird died, or was shot or 

 became a " shunted dowager." 



The variety in the colour of the eggs of the Guillemot is something 

 wonderful, and it is almost vain to attempt a description of their diversified 

 tints. The ground-colours are cream, white, blue and yellowish green, 

 dark and clear pea-green, and reddish and purplish brown, with every 

 conceivable intermediate tint. Some arc irregularly blotched, others ai-e 

 fantastically streaked Avith browns, pinks, or greys in endless variety, 

 whilst a few arc spotless or nearly so. The chief thing that strikes an 



