THE BLACK GUILLEMOT 299 



creature may be descried squatting there, half on 

 its feet, half on its tarsus, their rich ruddy hue 

 forming a delicious patch of colour on the funereal 

 grey of the rock. You are soon detected. Never- 

 theless for an appreciable time ere taking wing the 

 bird cranes its neatly-cut head upwards and side- 

 ways with the strangest of contortions, the better 

 to view so strange an animal. When it eventually 

 flies, the legs are at first straddled out on either side, 

 but are shortly gathered up straight out under its 

 tail. As it settles on the sea, it literally ricochets 

 along for a short way, a happening which suggests 

 a game of ducks and drakes played with a largish, 

 pied boulder. 



Black Guillemots like to sit on low reefs bare 

 or be-seaweeded as well as on ledges in the lower 

 half of a generally broken up cliff ; and from time 

 to time one or several together whine. This is a 

 curious sound, being reminiscent of a doleful, 

 indrawn sigh, and it may be heard from a flying 

 as well as from a resting bird. Whether it is 

 uttered in winter I cannot say, the earliest personal 

 record I have of it bears date of April llth. 



The birds are excessively capricious in the way 

 they frequent their breeding-grounds. This some- 

 what depends on the state of the tides, yet, all the 

 same, I used to notice that after 12 o'clock noon 

 scarce one was to be seen, and that even if the hens 

 were incubating. The absentees are then fishing 

 out at sea, or at the mouth of some big tidal 



