32 NOTES ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE BELL ROCK. 



small white-banded whelks, which one may easily crush be- 

 tween the fingers, maintain their position on the base of the 

 tower, despite the constant swirl of waters, though they may 

 be detached with a nick of the finger. 



Yegetation now exists only at low- water mark ; above 

 that, broken tangle roots, or, to be more correct, the claspers 

 are seen still adhering to the rocks, the tangles themselves 

 having been shorn clean from their moorings. Away towards 

 the south-west, in the deeper water, a boat may float among 

 whole groves of storm-torn tangles as they flaunt their 

 tattered banners in the frosty sunlight, suggestive of leafless 

 trees in a winter landscape. Over the recently emptied con- 

 tents of the cook's slop-pail a flock of gulls are circling and 

 screaming, actually hustling each other in their attempts to 

 capture anything edible. A solitary " black-back " is seen 

 amongst the noisy crowd, and as he swoops at some tempting 

 morsel, his black, beady eye watches our every movement with 

 suspicion. What a handsome bird he is as he swings past 

 within a few feet of us, the back and wings presenting a dead 

 black appearance in startling contrast with the immaculate 

 whiteness of the fan-shaped tail and the remainder of the body. 

 Despite his handsome appearance, he is a veritable vulture, 

 and nothing comes amiss to him in the way of food, be it fish, 

 flesh or fowl. Frequently I have seen them make a meal of a 

 wounded duck, and once witnessed in Orkney a tug-of-war 

 between two of them for the possession of a dead lamb, 

 resulting, thanks to its decomposed state, in an equal division. 



More gruesome meals are credited to them by those who 

 have witnessed their proceedings on a wreck strewn shore 

 where loss of life had been involved. A terror also 011 the 

 grouse moors, they devour both eggs and young, and even the 

 sitting grouse herself is not safe from him. One can scarcely 

 credit such a sweeping indictment against this handsome bird, 

 but the proofs are all too plain. Consequently we find him out- 

 side the pale of the Wild Birds Protection Act, an Ishmael 

 among his kind, whom any man may slay when and where- 

 ever found. Except when harrying the eider ducks of their 



