zoo NEIGHBOURS UNKNOWN 



lifeless. Indeed, it was thronged, packed, 

 clamorous, screaming with life. It was a very 

 paradise of the nesting sea-bird. Every 

 meagre foot of it, rock and sand, was pre- 

 empted and occupied by the myriad battalions 

 of puffin, skua, auk, and saddle-back. The 

 incessant clamour of their voices, harsh and 

 shrill, overrode even the trampling of the surf. 

 Within the crowded little domain each tribe 

 had its territory. The puffins or " sea- 

 parrots," as some of the sailor folk call them, 

 because of their huge hooked beaks occupied 

 the sandy slope, where they had their nests 

 in deep burrows for protection against the 

 robber skuas and saddle-backs. The auks 

 had a corner of the cliff-face, where along 

 every ledge they sat straight up in prim, close 

 array like so many dwarf penguins, each couple 

 occupied with its precious solitary egg. The 

 rest of the cliff-face was monopolized by the 

 screaming hosts of the saddle-backs, those 

 great, marauding, black-backed gulls, whose 

 yelps and wild ka-ka-ka-kaings made most of 

 the deafening tumult in which the rocks were 

 wrapt. As for the skuas, or " men-o'-war," 

 less numerous than the other inhabitants of 

 the island, they occupied the lower ledges 

 and the rock-crevices around the base of the 

 puffins' field. These were the situations which 



