NOTES ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE BELL ROCK. 43 



evidently has no intention of leaving. Should the window be 

 left open he makes bold enough to enter, although but the 

 other day he gave us a somewhat dramatic illustration of the 

 proverbial hen on the hot " griddle " by rehearsing a fandango 

 on the top of our cooking range, a position from which he had 

 to be forcibly removed. To-day, the 21st, he has been joined 

 by a companion of his own species, a red-chequered homer ; 

 but instead of the mutual demonstrations of pleasure one 

 would expect to witness at their meeting in such isolation, 

 they remained quite indifferent to each other's presence, the 

 newcomer possibly from motives of disdain, as he appears to 

 belong to the aristocracy, seeing he sports an aluminium 

 bracelet, on which are the letters "U.B." and the year 1901, 

 besides a number composed of three figures, which, unfor- 

 tunately, I took no note of. A strong southerly breeze on 

 the 22nd deprived us of their company. Losing the shelter 

 of the tower, they were unable to make headway against the 

 wind, and, fortunately for themselves, were driven landwards. 



On the 20th a small patch of paidle-fish spawn was seen 

 cemented in a sheltered nook of the rocks. This is unusually 

 early for nesting operations, as it is generally May before they 

 are much in evidence here. The extremely small quantity 

 may denote a change of mind on the part of the depositor ; 

 besides, the site is badly chosen, as the nest is a couple of 

 feet above low water, and consequently without the cock's 

 guardianship for some time each tide. Possibly the heavy 

 seas prevalent during the past fortnight may have warned 

 the builder of being somewhat premature in her operations. 



We had ocular demonstration the other day concerning 

 a matter of which doubts have been expressed, namely, the 

 skinning of their prey by seals. Not only do they skin their 

 fish, but each shred of skin is greedily swallowed as soon as 

 stripped. The skinning entails a good deal of trouble, as the 

 fish is pushed away from the seal at every mouthful, and con- 

 sequently sinks, so that a dive is necessary each time in order 

 to resume operations. Why he should take all this trouble 

 is not apparent, but presumably he understands his own 



