IN THE SHETLANDS Ty 
exertion, for they do sometimes make swift gliding 
circles through the air, not indeed without moving 
the wings at all, yet moving them but little, and at 
intervals—a few pulsations and then a sweep. Yet 
this is never very much. They seem to be just in 
the way of getting to something more advanced in 
flying, without quite knowing what they would be at. 
However, I think in time they will begin to under- 
stand, get a hint of their real feelings, like the 
heroines in novels, who find all at once that they 
have been in love for some while without noticing it. 
(Shakespeare’s heroines, by the by, seem to have had 
a clearer insight into their state of mind—but then, 
there was more for them to know about.) They—the 
puffins, I mean, not the heroines—will often, when 
they leave their nests, mount up to a considerable 
height and then descend in a long slant to the sea. 
In this they are peculiar, as far as I have observed, 
and for some time I could not imagine why they did 
it; but tearing up some letters one day as I sat on the 
rock’s edge and throwing them towards the sea, the 
pieces were carried upwards, some of them rising almost 
perpendicularly, and continuing to do so for some 
while before they were blown against the higher slopes 
of the cliff. The puffins, I then felt sure, must mount 
upon this upward current of air, either as a matter of 
enjoyment, or as finding it easier to do so. Probably 
it is the latter consideration which influences them, 
but ease is nearly allied to enjoyment, passes insensibly 
into it; and thus, in time, these little puffins may 
