BIRDS' NESTING SEASON 141 



Valhalla was across a bloody battlefield, still survives 

 in the idea that the most honourable deathbed for a 

 Shetlander is ' on the Banks ' ; but on the more com- 

 fortable Mainland, so far as we could learn, there is very 

 little cliff-climbing done now by any but adventurous 

 boys ; and, excepting when, as hundreds are misguided 

 enough to do, the birds tempt fate by laying on the 

 flat, they may most of them reckon on bringing up 

 their families without human interference. 



As we stood by the Holm, continuous flocks of 

 small Gulls, either Kittiwakes or common Gulls ' Sea 

 Mews ' the two are in appearance so much alike, that 

 unless very close indeed it is impossible to say which is 

 which flew over us, all in the same direction, coming 

 from the north-west. Every bird, in all many hundreds, 

 had a bunch of something in its mouth. We tried 

 to find out what the attractive morsels were, but all 

 our efforts to make one of them drop his load were 

 useless, and we could only guess from the general 

 appearance and size (very likely wrongly) that they 

 were parcels of sand-eels or sand- worms. 



From the Holm we strolled over to the lower ground, 

 where in the morning we had noticed more than one 

 anxious pair of Richardson's Skuas, and were absorbed 

 for the rest of the afternoon in watching them. The 

 Skuas, of which there are four kinds classed as British, 

 are the connecting-link between the Gulls and Hawks. 

 The Richardson or Arctic Skua is the commonest. It 

 is a slender bird with a body scarcely bigger than a 

 Pigeon, but with a powerful cutting beak, and great 



