126 THE BIRDS OF THE OUTER FARNES 



on the sand, so exactly matching the ground that, 

 though we looked closely, with the certainty that eggs 

 were near us, it took some time to find them. 



We cannot tell how many thousand generations back 

 it was that the ancestors of the Puffins of our day came 

 to the conclusion that burrows were the best places for 

 the family to breed in, but, in the matter of egg-paint- 

 ing, they are still apparently in a transitional stage. 

 The eggs, when not too dirty to show their natural 

 colour, are almost white ; but at the thick end there are 

 usually faint spots, just sufficient to show that, though 

 the painter's art has been long neglected, the brushes 

 are there, and the internal colour-box has still a little 

 paint in it, and might, if a change of tastes at some far 

 future time required it, be filled again. 



While we were amusing ourselves with the Puffins 

 on the Wawmses, a fresh breeze had sprung up, and as 

 soon as we had finished luncheon we hoisted a sail, and 

 after landing again for a minute on the Brownsman, 

 which we had first visited, to look for a nest of the 

 Rock Pipit, which is rare in more southerly parts, 

 but breeds here plentifully in the grass tufts in the 

 cracks of the rocks, sailed across the Sound to the 

 Wide-opens, which we had passed without landing in 

 the morning. The Wide-opens once ' Weddums,' the 

 ' Ragers ' had in early days a very bad reputation. 

 It was to them that St. Cuthbert banished the devils 

 which, when he first came to Fame, had annoyed him 

 very much, and after his death became again so bold 

 that they took no trouble to conceal themselves, and 



