42 The Birds of the 



ground that, though we looked closely, with the cer- 

 tainty that eggs were near us, it took some time to 

 find them. 



We cannot tell how many thousand generations 

 back it was that the ancestors of the puffins of 

 our day came to the conclusion that burrows were 

 the best places for the family to breed in, but, in 

 the matter of egg-painting, they are still appa- 

 rently in a transitional stage. The eggs, when not 

 too dirty to show their natural colour, are almost 

 white, but at the thick end there are usually faint 

 spots, just sufficient to show that, though the painter's 

 art has been long neglected, the brushes are there, 

 and the internal colour-box has still a little paint in 

 it, and might, if a change of tastes at some far future 

 time required it, be filled again. 



While we were amusing ourselves with the puffins 

 on the Wawmses, a fresh breeze had sprung up, and as 

 soon as we had finished luncheon we hoisted a sail, 

 and after landing again for a minute on the Browns- 

 man, which we had first visited, to look for a nest 

 of the rock pippet, which is rare in more southerly 

 parts, but breeds here plentifully in the grass tufts in 

 the cracks of the rocks, sailed across the Sound to the 

 Wide-opens, which we had passed without landing in 

 the morning. The Wide-opens once " Weddums," 

 the " Ragers " had in early days a very bad reputa- 

 tion. It was to them that St. Cuthbert banished the 

 devils which, when he first came to Fame, had annoyed 

 him very much, and after his death became again so 

 bold that they took no trouble to conceal themselves, 

 and were a constant anxiety to the monks on the 

 neighbouring island. 



We were received ourselves with screams as we 

 landed, but of a note less alarming than those which 



