IN THE SHETLANDS ak: 
is responsible for this? Surely not gulls! And never 
having seen a peregrine falcon here, | have got to not 
much believe in him. I have seen no sign of such 
a thing on the part of the great skuas. The others, 
I think, are only robbers, or at least could hardly 
kill a puffin, whose beak should be more powerful 
than their own. It is somewhat of a mystery to me. 
One more word upon the puffin. He is strongly 
ritualistic, if not actually a papist. I find it, as is so 
often the case, difficult to be sure which. See the 
whole series of pretty little genuflexions that he 
makes after coming down upon a rock, and then 
consider his vestments, his surplice—if that is the 
proper thing—“ his rich dalmatic and maniple fine,” 
his “‘rochet and pall,” and so on—they are all there, 
I feel certain, for not otherwise could he look so 
extraordinary. His beak, too, if he only open it the 
least little bit in the world, is a bishop’s mitre, and, 
for the ring, he wears it round his eye. ‘ Pope,” 
indeed, is one of his local names, but, on the whole, 
I class him as a ritualist, for he ‘‘ out-herods Herod.” 
Whether he secedes to Rome ever, or as near there 
as the mouth of the Tiber, I don’t quite know ; but 
if he does ’tis no matter, for he is sure to come back 
again. 
