CH. VI. EGGS OF SEA-FOWL. 101 



a good cragsman, we lowered the latter over the 

 top in order to procure a few eggs. I was amazed 

 at the confidence and ease with which the lad made 

 his way from shelf to shelf, and crevice to crevice 

 of the precipices. From habit and custom he 

 seemed to be as much at his ease as if he had been 

 on fair terra firma. As for the birds, they would 

 scarcely move, but just stepped out of reach, 

 croaking at him with their peculiar note. 



Each bird has a single egg of a size so large 

 as to appear quite disproportioned. The eggs are 

 of all colours, and marked in a thousand fantastic 

 manners, sometimes with large blotches of deep 

 brown or black, sometimes speckled slightly all 

 over, and others having exactly the appearance 

 of being covered with Arabic characters. The pre- 

 vailing groundwork of the eggs is greenish blue, 

 but they vary in different shades from that colour 

 to nearly white. The egg is placed on the bare 

 rock, with no attempt at a nest; and it was very 

 amusing to see the careful but awkward-looking 

 manner in which the old bird, on her return from 

 the sea, got astride, as it were, of her egg, spreading 

 her wings over it, and croaking gently all the time. 

 Occasionally an egg would get knocked off by some 

 bird in taking flight from the rock, to the great 

 indignation of its owner. 



