KITTIWAKE. NATATORES. LARUS. 495 



the whole of its subsistence, being fish, crustaceae, and other Food, 

 aquatic animal food, from the element over which it is seen 

 almost constantly sporting. From the shortness and posi- 

 tion of its legs it is unable to walk or run upon land with 

 the same ease as its congeners, on which account, added to 

 the necessity of supplying it with a fish diet, I have found 

 it more difficult to be kept in a state of confinement than any 

 of the others. Great numbers of this species breed upon the 

 Bass Rock in the Frith of Forth, on Fowls-Heugh near 

 Stonehaven, and other precipitous rocks on the eastern coast 

 of Scotland. In England they breed at Flamborough Head 

 in Yorkshire, and at the Fern Islands on the Northumbrian 

 coasts, where they select the small clefts and narrow ledges 

 of the perpendicular and detached basaltic rocks, called The 

 Pinnacles, whose summits are occupied by the Guillemot and 

 Razor-Bill. Upon these, although in many instances not 

 above a handVbreadth wide, they build their nests (of sea- Nest, &e. 

 grass and other dry materials), and rear their young in se- 

 curity. The latter seem to be instinctively aware of their 

 perilous situation, where sometimes the least movement would 

 precipitate them into the waves beneath, and are observed 

 seldom to change their attitude in the nest till sufficiently 

 fledged to be enabled to provide for their own safety, The 

 eggs, usually two in number, are of a greyish- white, slightly 

 tinged with wood-brown, and blotched with dark or blackish 

 brown and purplish-grey. During incubation the females 

 are very tame, and will sit upon their eggs or callow young, 

 though closely approached ; at the same time the males con- 

 tijiue to fly round in circles, uttering the frequently repeated 

 cry, from the sound of which they have obtained their com- 

 mon English name Kittiwdke. In the young state this bird 

 was formerly called the Tarrock, which was considered to 

 be a distinct species ; but its history is now better known, 

 and the changes it undergoes from its earliest age to matu- 

 rity (which is not attained till after the second autumnal 

 moult) have been correctly ascertained. 



