hoarse guttural note being heard ; but at its breeding-place on ' The Pinnacles ' 

 at the Fames a perfect Babel of sounds may be heard. When an intruder 

 appears on the cliff-top opposite, all the Guillemots seem to be talking at once, 

 and their curious note, a guttural ' grrr,' seems to rise and fall in chromatic 

 scales, as it swells and dies away. 



One of the most accessible breeding-stations, and at the same time one 

 which affords the finest opportunity of observing the Guillemot at close 

 quarters, is that on the Fame Islands. A row of tall whitewashed rocks, 

 called 'The Pinnacles,' stands some twenty yards distant from the adjoining 

 island. They rise sheer from the water some fifty feet in height at half 

 tide and are perfectly flat on the top, which, like most of the sides, is 

 completely whitewashed with the droppings of the birds. A dense mass of 

 Guillemots occupies every available inch on the top of these ' Pinnacles.' 

 So tightly packed are they that birds may be seen with flapping wings settling 

 on the backs of their neighbours, endeavouring to find sufficient space of rock 

 to sit on. Every now and again one may be seen elbowing his way to the 

 edge of the cliff, from which he takes a header into the sea with wings, legs, 

 and tail outspread. 



On the top of these ' Pinnacles ' the eggs are laid without the slightest 

 vestige of a nest, the old birds sitting stride-legs on them and perfectly 

 upright, with their backs to the edge of the cliff, so as to show the least 

 conspicuous part of their plumage. On the Bass Rock most of the Guillemots 

 lay their eggs on the ledge near the base of the cliff, but numbers may be 

 found almost at the top, some three hundred feet above the water. 



The Guillemot lays only one egg, which is enormously large in proportion 

 to the size of the bird. It would be wellnigh impossible to describe all the 

 innumerable variations of colour and markings which may be found among 

 the eggs of the Guillemot ; the ground-colour may be white, or any shade 

 of cream, red, brown, brown-purple, olive, deep green or bluish green, and 

 almost any intermediate colour. They are blotched, spotted, and streaked, or 

 covered with curious writing-like scrawlings of browns, rich reddish purples, 

 pinks, greys or black, sometimes being without any markings at all, or with 

 one huge, irregular blotch covering nearly a quarter of the entire surface. 

 They vary in size from 3-6 to 3*0 inches in length, and from 2T to r8 inch 

 in breadth. Very small eggs are occasionally met with, not bigger than that 

 of a bantam, but they usually have a very thick shell and no yolk, and rarely, 

 if ever, hatch. 



When the young are hatched, the momentous question arises, How do they 



72 



