NOTES ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE BELL ROCK. 



welcome our visitor, we mentally contrast our inferiority with 

 more juvenile days a time when even road metal could be 

 safely negotiated. The screaming gulls resent our interference 

 with their expected feast, no doubt slanging us unmercifully 

 as we land our capture, an arm-long lythe, safely on the 

 grating. Their clamouring, however, is soon stilled, as each 

 retires with as big a share of the offal as his strength and 

 agility can command. 



The long-tailed ducks are now only wanting to complete 

 the list of our winter boarders, and their advent may be 

 looked for early next month. The eiders have now attained 

 their numerical strength for the winter, and are busily en- 

 gaged picking up a living, not only for themselves, but also 

 for the parasitical gulls which hover in close attendance, 

 shepherding them with unwearied diligence. The peculiar 

 cackling of the eiders not unlike that of wild geese becomes 

 somewhat disturbing as their operations are occasionally 

 carried on underneath our bedroom window. Gannets are 

 now rarely seen here, but at their breeding haunts on the 

 Bass Rock which we had the opportunity of visiting while 

 on our way here last relief they are still in evidence, though 

 by the end of the month they will have commenced their 

 journey southwards. A new light is being completed on the 

 Bass Rock, and on the first of December, yet another factor 

 in our dwindling list of visitors will be in operation 

 ostensibly a lighthouse but to our feathered friends, alas ! a 

 veritable slaughter-house. 



