2l8 COUNTRY ESSAYS. 



birds now begin to fly across the Firefly's bows in little parties 

 of three or four, skimming the waves, and soon as we draw 

 near the magnificent cliffs of Flamborough they grow tamer, 

 and ride on the waves as we approach. It is the ist of August, 

 and to-day their slaughter, according to the sea-fowl Bill, may 

 legitimately begin. Two of those on board want a few for 

 their own and their friends' collections, and are now crouching 

 down, gun in hand, one at the bows, the other by the stern, 

 watching their opportunity. Most abundant are the guillemots 

 ( Uria Troile\ swimming very low in the water, and dipping up 

 and down iu the swells, with their brownish dark plumage ren- 

 dered more conspicuous as they rise by the pure white of their 

 breasts. Generally speaking, not having been disturbed of late, 

 they do not take the trouble to fly, but fix their sparkling 

 timorous eyes on us until, a sudden access of terror coming 

 over them, down go their sharp black bills, and they dive, to 

 reappear fifty yards further from the yacht. Constantly we see 

 them floating thus on each side of us in little family parties of 

 seven or eight. Enormous numbers haunt the sea off the 

 headland here, and roost or breed on the ledges of its chalk. 

 Their solitary egg is laid on the rock- shelf without any attempt 

 at making a nest, and the bird incubates in an erect position, 

 like the attitude in which the great auk is depicted. So little 

 is its dread of man at that time, or, indeed, at any time, that 

 it has earned the sobriquet of "Foolish Guillemot " thereby. 

 Besides two rarer species, another is common in Scotland with 

 black plumage and patches of white, and red legs, whereas our 

 bird has dusky legs like his neck and back. Little parties of 

 gulls and kittiwakes, containing perhaps fifty birds, scream 

 and wheel around our track and in front : herring gulls, the 

 common gulls, lesser black-backed, and others apparently of 

 different kinds, but more probably the same in different stages 

 of plumage (for no family of birds changes its plumage in so 

 marked a manner as do the gulls, and no one but a professed 



