MARCH 1902. 



SIGNS of uneasiness and unrest are now apparent amongst our 

 winter boarders, the eiders and long-tailed ducks. Taking 

 wing on the slightest provocation, they wheel aimlessly 

 round the Rock, and instead of their usual steady persistence 

 in diving for a living, they seem quite discontented with their 

 lot, and plainly making up their minds to desert us for the 

 summer. Advances by the males are as yet met with scorn- 

 ful rebuffs by their less showy plum aged partners, but soon a 

 mutual understanding will be arrived at, and before the 

 month closes they will have gone house-hunting, eiders 

 possibly to the Isle of May, while the long-tails, being 

 migratory, seek their homes in the frozen North. It seems 

 a strange anomaly that the less robust looking longtail should 

 choose such rigorous latitudes for the rearing of its brood, 

 while the sturdy " dunter," swathed in his arctic coat, should 

 elect to stay at home. On the other hand, we have been 

 visited on hazy nights by numbers of larks and thrushes 

 returning to our shores, after wintering in " Norroway ower 

 the faem." These members of the spring migratory move- 

 ment often come to grief on our lantern, and when one 

 considers the number of lighthouses round our coasts, it will 

 be understood that the death-roll from this cause alone must 

 be extremely high. Designed to save life, we unwittingly 

 lure our feathered friends to their destruction. 



A couple of seals have been sporting round our door of 

 late, and they also exhibit signs of exuberance in keeping 

 with the season. At high water they come quite close to the 

 tower, and their antics are seen to advantage from our 

 balcony. Rolling over each other, they make for the bottom, 

 gliding along the rocks like hounds hunting in couples ; then 



