38 The Birds of the 



carried us into the middle of the crowd, and we could 

 see all they were doing, and almost fancy we could 

 hear what they were saying and read their characters. 

 Some of the matrons probably it was not their first 

 experience of the breeding season looked intensely 

 bored. They reached out first one wing then another, 

 gaped, got up for a moment and stretched themselves, 

 and yawned again, with ludicrously human expression, 

 conscious evidently of what society expected from 

 them, and submitting to its restraints, but heartily 

 sick of the whole concern, and longing for the time 

 they might be free again to follow herrings and sprats 

 at their own sweet will, without haunting visions of a 

 chilling egg. 



Others seemed entirely absorbed in their eggs. 

 There was one bird in particular which we watched 

 for some time, the proud possessor of a brilliant green, 

 strongly marked egg as usual to all appearance quite 

 out of proportion to her own size wiiich she arranged 

 and rearranged under her, trying with beak and wing 

 to tuck the sharp end between her legs, but never 

 quite satisfied that it was covered as it should be. 

 But for the wonderful provision for its safety in the 

 shape of the guillemot's egg (a round flat-sided wedge, 

 which makes it when pushed turn round on the point, 

 instead of rolling, as eggs of the usual form if placed 

 on a bare rock would do), most of those we saw 

 would probably have been dashed to pieces long 

 before. 



It was an old belief* that the eggs of such cliff- 



* " Locus nempe, (ut dixi) ccemento albo incrustatur, ovumque 

 cum nascitur lenta et viscosa madet humiditate qua cito con- 

 crescente, tanquam ferrumine quodam substrate saxo aggluti- 

 natur." Hatvey, De Generatione Animaliorum. 



