40 The Bh ds of the 



heavily, with a flight like a greyhen's, and lit a few 

 hundred yards out to sea, where she was at once 

 joined by her handsome mate, who had been concealed 

 on guard not far off among the rocks of the bay. The 

 drake unlike the duck, which, when nesting, entirely 

 changes her habits, and becomes, as we saw for our- 

 selves, as tame as an Aylesbury, allowing herself to 

 be almost touched before she rises never loses his 

 habitual wariness. He is seldom far from the duck, 

 but, excepting as she leaves her nest, when he is 

 pretty sure to join her, manages to keep well out of 

 sight. They are very common on the islands. We 

 saw a great many nests, several thickly padded with 

 down, but perhaps because the black-backed gulls 

 are bad neighbours, as sucked egg-shells here and 

 there too plainly showed none had larger clutches 

 than four or five. One forgiving duck was sitting on 

 two eggs, one of which was a gull's. 



The eider duck, when frightened, usually, as she 

 rises, spatters her eggs with a yellow oil, which has a 

 strong, sickly, musky smell. The young birds are 

 taken by their mothers to the sea almost immediately 

 that they are hatched ; but we were lucky enough, 

 later in the day, on another island, to find, under a 

 piece of stranded wreck, four tiny brown-black duck- 

 lings. They were not many minutes out of the shell, 

 and looked, in their soft bed of down, which exactly 

 matched their own colour, the perfection of baby 

 comfort. One of the watchers had noticed eggs 

 in the nest an hour before we found the little 

 birds. 



From the Brownsman we crossed to the South 

 Wawmses, which, with its sister island, the North 

 Wawmses, from which it is separated by a narrow 

 channel, is the headquarters of the puffins. We landed 



