84. THE BIRD WATCHER 
At two I could see, thgwgh dimly, to write, and now, 
at a quarter-past three, I can as plainly as by full day- 
light, though it is not that yet. The Skerries light is 
still flashing, though it must be now superfluous ; but 
even as I write this, it must have flashed its last, for 
the proper interval has gone by. There is now a great 
bellowing of shags from the cave, which may proceed 
either from a single pair or from several. No words 
can describe the strangeness of these sounds. They 
are more than guttural—stomachic rather. They 
harmonise finely with those of the sea, and some- 
times, indeed, bear a curious resemblance to some of 
its minor, sullen gurgles, deep within the cavern. But 
no birds fly out. 
Several times, again, now, | have seen this large 
small cetacean, and once another one, larger still—in 
fact, an unmistakable small whale, which came briskly 
up at no great distance away and blew a jet of oily- 
looking vapour from its nose. It looked almost black, 
and had the right whale shape, though not more, per- 
haps, than some dozen or twenty feet long. These 
small whales are common off the Shetlands, but sud- 
denly to see one is very exciting. It reminds me of 
when, from the rocks of Raasey Isle, I saw in the 
clear, pale light of the morning, true whales—huge 
monsters of the deep—tleaping, head first, out of the 
water and falling back into it again with a roar, which, 
though several miles off, 1 heard each time most 
distinctly, and attributed, at first, to the breaking 
away of portions of the cliff on the opposite shores of 
