60 The Shetlands in the 



in Shetland, carries the ordinary arts of deception to 

 as great perfection as any bird. It can limp like a 

 Partridge, and drop as if shot from the sky, and lie on 

 its side feebly flapping one wing. But if the stories 

 told by the shepherds are true, and certainly our own 

 experiences strongly confirmed them, the bird is not 

 content with such tame devices as these. 



In Flaubert's wonderful book " Salammbo," when 

 Hamilcar learns that, as a last hope for the city, a 

 sacrifice of first-born to Moloch has been decreed, he 

 hides the little Hannibal in dirty clothes in the slaves' 

 quarters, and struggles with the priests, who tear from 

 his arms a jewelled and scented slave boy. 



The Scoutie, with the true spirit of the noble 

 Carthaginian slaveowner, when hard pressed, deliber- 

 ately leads on to the nest of the Gulls it despises, 

 and then goes through an elaborate pantomime of 

 distress. Again and again we made sure that at last 

 we were to see the true Skua's eggs, and as often found 

 ourselves looking at the nest of some common Gull. 



But, before returning to Lerwick, we were to be 

 treated to an even more amusing specimen of the 

 cynical humour of the Scoutie. One of our party 

 had for some time watched a bird, which evidently 

 had eggs close by, and at last, when its suspicions 

 seemed to be lulled to sleep, saw it light on a rough 

 spot not very far off. There it stopped in ostentatious 

 concealment, every now and then cautiously lifting its 

 head and peering over the grass in his direction. He 

 marked the spot and walked straight up to it ; this 

 time pretty sure that he had got what he wanted. 

 When he was almost there the Scoutie rose with a 

 derisive chuckle from a black-backed Gull's nest, 

 where, as he had been slow in coming, she had 

 whiled away the time by sucking one of the eggs. 



