IN THE SHETLANDS 85 
Skye. Nothing, it seemed to me, but a landslip was 
sufficient to account for such a tremendous sound, and 
it was with an interest the vividness of which I can 
even now feel that its true nature first dawned upon 
me. These whales, as, with their huge dimensions, | 
could see, though so far away, leapt almost if not 
entirely clear of the water, and perpendicularly into the 
air. At that time I was quite unaware that they ever 
did this, but since then I have both heard and read of 
it, and Darwin, somewhere in his journal, speaks of 
the cachalot or sperm-whale doing the same thing. 
Puffins are beginning now to fly hither and thither 
over the sea, and terns are fishing about a low-lying 
eastern isle. They are the common kind, but some 
clouds above the island are becoming flame-touched, 
making them roseate terns. An Arctic skua goes by 
too, and a black guillemot flies with a fish to feed its 
young. Still from the recesses of the cavern come 
those deep, hoarse, bellowing sounds, but they must 
be uttered by shags upon their nests, and that do not 
mean to come forth. What there was to see I have 
seen—those bat-like shadows. There can be no more 
to speak of—it is too late—but, were there hundreds, 
I can no longer resist the impulse to walk and walk in 
the clear and cool-aired morning. The shags that 
roost in these caverns cannot, I think, be numerous, 
and they leave them, it would seem, whilst night still 
broods upon the sea. 
True, there was the morning, clear and lovely, in 
the east, but, to see that, they would have had to peep 
