IN THE SHETLANDS III 
summit of a beetling cliff, and watch the breeding 
sea-fowl on the ledges below? In the Shetlands, at 
least, it is possible to do this in perfect safety, for the 
strata of the rock have often been tilted up to such 
an extent that, whilst the precipice formed by their 
broken edges is of the most fearful description, their 
slope, even on the landward side, is so steep that when 
one has climbed it, and flung oneself full length at the 
top, one’s head looks down—as mine does now—as 
from a slanting wall, against which one’s body leans. 
To fall over, one would first have to fall upwards, 
and the knowledge of this gives a feeling of security, 
without which one could hardly observe or take notes. 
The one danger lies in becoming abstracted and for- 
getting where one is. Those steep, green banks—for 
the rock, except in smooth, unclimbable patches, is 
covered with lush grass—have no appearance of an 
edge, and I have often shuddered, whilst plodding 
mechanically upwards, to find myself but just awak- 
ened from a reverie, within a yard or so of their 
soft-curled, lap-like crests. But I think my “sub- 
liminal,” in such cases, was always pretty well on the 
watch, or—to adopt a more prosaic and now quite 
obsolete explanation—the reverie was not a very deep 
one. ; 
At any rate, here I am safe, and, looking down again 
from my old “coign of vantage” of two years before, 
the same wonderful and never forgotten—never-to- 
be-forgotten—sight presents itself. Here are the 
guillemots, the same individual birds, standing—each 
