IN THE SHETLANDS 5 
fellow nestlings had come to grief in some way, and 
if so it is probable that many entire broods have also. 
Yet perhaps they have merely drifted away into the 
wide, watery world, where they may be able enough 
to shift for themselves thus early. To judge by 
these, however, they would not have left the mother 
duck voluntarily—they are dutiful, dependent little 
things. 
Where the coast is iron-bound, in delightful little 
bays and inlets—those sea-pools lovely to look down 
upon—one may watch the eiders feeding on the rocks, 
and try, through the glasses, to make out exactly 
what they are getting. In this way I am amusing 
myself this morning, having just run round a 
projecting point, towards which a family of three 
were advancing, and concealed myself behind a 
projecting ridge. Over this I can just peep at some 
black rocks, up which, whilst their mother waits, the 
little ducklings now begin to crawl. So steep is the 
slope that sometimes they slip and roll a little way 
down it, but they always recover themselves and run 
up it again, none the worse. In the intervals between 
such little mishaps they seem to be picking minute 
shell-fish off the rock ; but what shell-fish are they? 
for the small white ones, with which large areas 
of the rock are covered, are as hard as stone, and 
might defy anything short of a hammer and chisel to 
dislodge them. It is not on these assuredly that these 
soft little things are feeding, and now I see that 
where they are most active the rock is black. There 
