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grey, giant skeins; all the ledges, but the uppermost, when 
looked at from below, seemed garnished with heavy white 
fringes, the white droppings of the birds having run down in 
close parallel lines in a wonderfully symmetrical fashion, over the 
weather smoothed edges of the terraces. Seen from a distance, 
the whole cliff face seemed mottled with huge patches of white- 
wash. Bleached bones, and dusky quills strewed every little 
plateau, and nestled in every cranny. It was on the 30th of 
March, 1867 that I laid siege to this natural fortress. With the 
assistance of two sporting Mahomedan faqeers, two of the best 
eragsmen I ever saw, having duly removed my boots, I crept 
to the lowest ledge, a work of extreme difficulty, owing to the 
excessive slipperiness of the white crusted rocks. To my in- 
tense disgust, a little apart from the nest, on the bare stone, 
sat a huge unwieldy mass of yellow fluffy down, opening a vast 
mouth and cackling and hissing at me in the most hostile 
manner. ‘The unfortunate little wretch was too fat and heavy 
to stand firmly on its stumpy legs, and could only stand up for 
a second, stagger a few inches, and then plump down exhausted. 
It was really touching to see how every moment in the midst 
of its vain efforts to intimidate us, the little fellow kept looking 
anxiously around and above for its parents. But it was about 
10 a. M. and all the old ones were away procuring food, and during 
the two hours we remained about the rocks, only one of them at 
all closely approached the place, although before we left, the whole 
community, I should say nearly 60 in number, had collected 
in the valley, (in one side of which the cliff was situated) and 
kept wheeling and circling round above their homes, but at 
a distance of fully a quarter of a mile. We left the dingy little 
tenant of the first nest in peace, doubtless congratulating 
himself on the fact that his valorous demonstrations had driven 
us away, and slowly and painfully made our way, (at what risk 
I hardly care to think of now) to one after another of the nest- 
filled ledges. Every where we found the nests empty, but in the 
ease of about half the number, a more or less advanced young 
one of from a week to a month old, was squatting on the bare 
rock a few feet from the nest. ‘Those nests near which no 
young one was seen, had obviously not been tenanted. At the 
time I fancied that these belonged to birds that had not yet 
laid, but I had the place closely watched for nearly a month 
without any one of them being used, so that I presume that the 
birds often find their first nest unsuitable in some way, and 
construct a second, in which to incubate their egg. It could not 
be, that any considerable number of the pairs were barren, for 
We saw quite as many young ones as pairs of old birds, and by 
