40 LUNDY ISLAND. 



features of the scene were a little exhausted, we had 

 leisure to look at the living occupants of the rocks. 

 The perpendicular cliffs of the naked rock, broken 

 into vast angular masses, square columns, and but- 

 tresses, like the walls of some old irregular castle, and 

 cut into shelves and ledges, sometimes only a few 

 inches wide, presented a very different scene from the 

 sloping wilderness of thrift-tussocks, interspersed with 

 boulders, which we had seen tenanted by the puffins 

 and razor-bills. Both of these species, indeed, were 

 found here also in considerable numbers ; but the 

 species more strictly appropriated to this locality was 

 the foolish guillemot, or " mer," as it is better known 

 to the fishermen. All along the little ledges, around, 

 above, and beneath us, we saw the guillemots sitting 

 in rows, row above row, almost as close as they could 

 comfortably place themselves, every one bolt upright, 

 the manner of sitting common to the puffins and 

 razor-bills also, but not to the gulls or gannets, which 

 incline the body when resting, as most birds do. It 

 is the position of the feet, set far behind, in the short- 

 winged plunging birds of the diver and auk families, 

 that makes the upright posture that of rest, this being 

 the only manner in which the centre of gravity can 

 be brought over the feet. The whole sole rests on the 

 ground, and not the toes only, as in other birds. 



Many of these birds were incubating, and others had 

 a chick. Not the least vestige of a nest was there, not 

 a fragment of seaweed, not a leaf of thrift ; the single 

 egg, never more, is dropped on the smooth shelf of 



