108 WITH NATURE AND A CAMERA. 



at a much more acute angle than the roof of most 

 houses, and were in addition covered by a crop of 

 extremely slippery sea-weed. From this point we 

 were all tied together, Alpine fashion, and began 

 to ascend the almost perpendicular cliff by the aid 

 of crannies and ledges, which were in many places 

 not more than an inch in depth, and barely afforded 

 a sufficient resting-place for our toes or finger-tips. 

 On arriving at a place where the precipice was broken 

 up into huge boulders and shelves which admitted 

 of easier and safer progress, the men began to give 

 us an exhibition of their skill with the fowling-rod 

 amongst the Guillemots and Razorbills. Some of 

 their captures were so clever that it appeared as if 

 they exercised some kind of destructive charm over 

 the poor birds. 



My brother commenced to busy himself after 

 getting a photograph of a Fulmar Petrel sitting 

 on her egg, and selecting a bird in a particularly 

 picturesque situation commenced to stalk her very 

 carefully. At last he came to a place where, by 

 dint of perseverance and the exercise of consider- 

 able ingenuity, he was enabled to fix the legs of 

 his camera into the interstices of the rocks in such 

 a position as to enable him to focus the bird at 

 close range. She was very uneasy at first, but by 

 working very deftly he allayed her fears, and she 

 sat an absolute picture against the bold mass of 

 overhanging broken crags. My brother was in a 

 perfect ecstasy of delight when putting in his 

 slide, but, alas ! just as he was in the very act of 

 exposing the plate, a dog, belonging to one of the 

 men, popped its great ugly head round a corner 

 close to the Fulmar, and she instantly sprang into 

 the air and was gone. That cur had good reason 

 to thank its lucky stars that it got off the Isle of 



