NESTING-PLACES OF WATER-FOWL. 311 



move from their nests until actually lifted off by the hand. 

 The eider duck, peculiarly wild and shy as it is, is equally 

 tame while sitting, allowing herself to be handled and her 

 nest to be robbed, not of its eggs, but of the valuable down 

 of which it is composed, without attempting to move from it. 



It is a singularly interesting sight to witness a number of 

 the solan geese fishing, on a calm day, in the Firth of Forth. 

 Following the shoals of herring, these handsome birds dash 

 one after the other into the water, with a force which is 

 actually astonishing, coming up (and almost invariably with 

 a herring in their bill) several yards from the place where 

 they made the plunge. They do not rise to the surface 

 gradually, like most divers, but suddenly like a cork, or as 

 if their buoyancy equalled that of a bladder. The peculiar 

 manner in which the skin of this bird is attached to the body, 

 leaving large intervals where the flesh and skin seen scarcely 

 at all connected, may give it this peculiar lightness, which to 

 the spectator is extremely striking. 



During the severe winter season the solan geese disappear 

 from the Bass Uock, going no one knows where ; but even at 

 that season two or three fine warm days bring them all back 

 again. Their abiding places are probably regulated more by 

 the supply of food than by the weather. 



I am by no means of opinion that either herring, salmon, 

 or other so-called migratory fish, leave our coast during those 

 seasons, when they disappear, or rather I should say, when 

 they are not caught. I am more inclined to think that they 

 always continue in the same neighbourhood, retiring only to 

 the depths of the ocean, where they rest quietly, safe from 

 nets, instead of betaking themselves, as the general opinion 

 is, to the other end of the world. 



