Outer Fames. 39 



haunting birds when first laid were coated with a 

 natural glue which hardening at once fixed them to 

 the rock. 



As is commonly the case with basaltic rocks, the 

 precipitous faces of the Pinacles and the cliffs opposite 

 are lined with cracks running across and up and down, 

 and broken into steps and shelves accessible only to 

 birds or the boldest trained climbers. These, with 

 the exception of a few of the larger upper ledges, 

 which go with the tops of the Pinacles, and are part 

 of the family estates of the guillemots, are tenanted 

 by kittiwakes. Their nests, which are also of grasses 

 or dry seaweed, and occupy all the most tempting 

 corners, are much more carefully and substantially 

 built than those of the larger and noisier cousins on 

 the table-land of the island, and the bird, as she sits 

 snugly " coiled up," perhaps, best describes the 

 favourite attitude on her eggs, with her white breast 

 exposed and head turned over her shoulder, the 

 yellow beak half hidden in the pale blue feathers of 

 her back, or raised only for a moment as her mate 

 sails up with the last bit of gossip from the outside 

 world, looks the perfection of peace and comfort, the 

 greatest contrast imaginable to the uncomfortable 

 Babel of the guillemots, a few feet above her. The 

 eggs, like those of most sea-birds, vary much, but are, 

 perhaps, proportionately shorter and thicker than 

 those of most gulls, and have usually a ground colour 

 of greyish green. Four or five eggs is not an un- 

 common number for a kittiwake to sit upon ; but 

 none of the nests into which we were able to look 

 had more than three in it. 



As we passed a clump of campion on our way back 

 to the boat, we all but trod on an eider duck, who was 

 sitting on a couple of eggs. She rose slowly and 



