down to the sea when they left their nesting-ledges, and straight up to their 

 nests again when they left the water. Their flight is performed by short 

 quick strokes of their wings, which are somewhat small for the size of the 

 bird ; yet they can fly at a great speed, though they are clumsy at rising off 

 the water, and generally splash along the surface for some distance before they 

 get properly started. 



The food of the Razorbill consists chiefly of small fish, principally small 

 saithe and the fry of herrings, but they also devour large quantities of 

 molluscs, crustaceans, etc. The bird is a marvellous diver, and catches its 

 fish-food under water with great dexterity. From the top of some low cliffs 

 on the Treshnish Islands, where the Razorbills are very plentiful, I lay and 

 watched them catching the small fish among the tangle of seaweed some 

 forty feet below me. They flew along under water as easily as they do in 

 the air, only with much slower strokes of their wings, and apparently helped 

 themselves along by paddling with their feet also. Whenever they succeeded 

 in catching a fish they shut their wings and appeared on the surface with 

 their prey held crosswise in their strong bills, turning it cleverly with a toss 

 of the head and swallowing it head first. These birds fly immense distances 

 to feed, returning in the evening to their nesting-sites, when they may be 

 seen in little strings, generally in single file, flying swiftly along just above 

 the surface of the water. 



The Razorbill is rather late in commencing its nesting operations, eggs 

 being seldom laid before the middle of May, and often not until the end 

 of the month. They return year after year to the same crevice to lay their 

 large single egg. I have two very richly coloured eggs before me as I 

 write, which I took from a cranny near the top of the Bass Rock on two 

 succeeding years. I was rather too late in going there in '96, and the egg was 

 there, but so very highly incubated that it defied all my attempts to blow it. 

 All these three eggs were exactly similar in character and colouring, though 

 the actual spots were somewhat different in shape on each occasion. Thus it 

 would seem that the Razorbill pairs for life. The Razorbill must have a 

 cranny or hole in which to lay its egg, and in sites where these are plentiful 

 great numbers of these birds breed in one large colony. The Guillemots usually 

 nest lower down on the cliff on the open ledges, the Razorbills keeping near 

 the top. On the Treshnish Islands a group in the Inner Hebrides I found 

 a great many Razorbills' eggs in the mouths of deserted Puffin burrows on 

 the edge of the cliff. Sometimes the egg is far in, in some crevice quite out 

 of reach, while others are in slight holes only some few inches in depth, as 



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