BIRDS' NESTING SEASON 135 



pointed spouts like a jug (the one to carry the melted 

 blubber and wick, the other to catch the drip) which, 

 until whale oil gave way to paraffin, was the common 

 lamp of the country and were almost disappointed 

 when, instead, she brought a contrivance of scarcely 

 less primitive design, not unlike a battered tin teapot 

 with a twist of unspun wool in the spout for wick. In 

 spite of the cloud of smoke it threw up, and the rather 

 troublesome attentions of a small calf which had been 

 shut up in the room to keep it from its mother, we 

 were able, by the light it gave, to examine, underneath 

 the wooden tray on legs, fastened to the wall, on which 

 the grindstones were fixed, the simple but very effective 

 contrivance l for regulating the coarseness of the meal 

 to be ground. 



We felt as we crept back into the open air much as 

 we might have done if, on crawling down the rocks 

 outside to look for the nests of the Black Guillemots 

 which swarmed on the lower ledges, we had turned a 

 corner and come upon a Great Auk sitting on her egg. 



Perhaps the sense of far-backness was all the stronger 

 upon us because, since we had left London, a veil had 

 been dropped between us and our past existence. The 

 weather as we left Aberdeen had been perfection, with 



1 A full description of the mechanism of a quern, with illustrations, 

 with much other interesting information with regard to the survival 

 in Shetland of implements, etc. , of patterns of very early date, will 

 be found in the Rhind Lectures, delivered in 1876 and 1878, by 

 Dr. A. Mitchell, Professor of Ancient History to the Royal Scottish 

 Academy, quoted above, published in 1880, under the title ' The Past 

 in the Present.' 



