BIRDS OF THE WAVE AND WOODLAND 167 



" In the blue vale of water 'twixt the waves 

 Ever the same, yet ever changed ; no mark, 

 No spot whereon to fix a local love, 

 No home to be remembered for its peace. 

 No shapely bough, well known and best beloved 

 Within the crowded forest," 



till the following May calls them back to the rocks and the 

 cares and pleasures of domestic life. 



Man is, of course, the chief enemy of these sea-bird 

 colonies, for in the bleak and barren islands where they 

 breed, human life couki be scarcely supported if it were not 

 for the annual harvests of eggs and young. The guillemots' 

 eggs are collected by tens of thousands. This work com- 

 mences at Flamborough, for instance, in the middle of May. 

 For the first nine days the climber has a good run of eggs ; 

 for the next nine, eggs are scarce. At the end of that time 

 all the birds who had been first robbed have laid again, 

 and he has a second run of large hauls, averaging from two to 

 three hundred a day. Then comes a second " slack " of nine 

 days, after which there is, as it were, the aftermath, sometimes 

 hardly worth the trouble and danger of gathering, sometimes 

 ec|ual in value to the first harvest. The birds themselves, 

 too, are eaten, more especially the puffin. 



St. Kilda has been described as " the paradise of puffins : 

 every available spot is burrowed and honeycombed with 

 their holes, and the sea is often black with birds." Hither 



