The Fame Islands. 263 



the boat as it approaches, apparently more to avoid 

 being run over than from any fear of its crew, and 

 the air is full of parties flying in all directions, 

 among which the puffins are particularly noticeable 

 on account of their bright bills and orange legs, 

 the latter of which they carry extended behind 

 them as they fly. Then as " the Pinnacles " flat- 

 topped rocks divided from the cliffs of the nearest 

 island by a very narrow channel, and rising forty 

 or fifty feet perpendicularly from the sea are 

 approached, the guillemots are seen in all their glory 

 as they occupy, literally in thousands, the flat tops, 

 which, with a considerable part of the sides., are so 

 completely whitewashed by their droppings as to 

 give the rocks even at a considerable distance the 

 appearance of being whitecapped. They sit on 

 end in their own peculiarly prim fashion, packed 

 so closely, that to all appearance there is not room 

 for another ; indeed, so dense are the masses, that 

 one cannot help wondering how any individual 

 bird can recognise its own egg, for the guillemot 

 lays but one, or having, left it, can force its way 

 back to it again when it has recognised it, more 

 especially as the eggs are placed on the bare rock 

 without the faintest vestige . of a nest. They are 

 pear-shaped, very large for the size of the birds, 

 and the colour and markings vary in different 

 specimens in a most extraordinary manner, the 

 former ranging through every shade, from a light 

 slaty grey, or even white, to a bright blue. As 

 the boat passes, hundreds of birds stream off the 



