The Sea-birds’ Nursery 
family. AQ fish father, for instance, with 
a few exceptions, will eat his own 
children with as much pleasure as those 
of another. Many fish number their 
young ones by the hundred thousand, 
and therefore he probably considers 
a few more or less do not matter 
much. And it is only by having such 
an enormous number of young that 
they can keep pace with the constant 
destruction which takes place. For 
besides their eating one another, and 
those destroyed by fish-eating birds, 
there are the quantities taken by fisher- 
men for our own eating, as well as those 
devoured by the fish-eating mammals, 
such as the whales and seals. 
On the tops of the higher rocks, and 
sitting in rows on every ledge, are 
hundreds of guillemots. Every few 
=e) 
