The Fame Islands. 269 



prettiest of waders, the ringed plover a little 

 bird which always shows the greatest solicitude for 

 its young when they are approached, endeavouring 

 by every artifice in its power to draw away the 

 intruder. With these little plovers, our list of 

 birds breeding on the Fame Islands is closed ; it 

 consists of the twelve following species, which 

 alone, so far as we are aware, breed there : The 

 cormorant, eider duck, ringed plover, oyster- 

 catcher, arctic tern, common tern, roseate tern, 

 Sandwich tern, kittiwake, herring gull, lesser 

 blacked-backed gull, guillemot, and puffin. Other 

 birds, for example a few herons and gannets, may 

 be seen, but they are only visitors. 



The islands have from time immemorial been 

 famous as a breeding-place of sea birds, and their 

 very fame went far to ensure the entire destruction 

 of the birds which caused it, as, the several Wild 

 Birds Protection Acts passed since 1869 notwith- 

 standing, the unfortunate birds were shot in 

 thousands by self-styled " sportsmen," and their 

 nests were also persistently robbed, the fishermen 

 and others taking eggs indiscriminately for sale as 

 food, while the army of " egg collectors " was 

 constantly raiding the nests of the rarer birds. 

 The extent to which this robbery was carried on, 

 even by scientific men, may be imagined when 

 we find so well known an ornithologist as Mr. 

 Seebohm confessing, in his "History of British 

 Birds," to having taken as many as 456 eggs in 

 one day, of which no less than 149 were those 



