KITTIWAKE 



cliff with my camera the parent has placed herself between the 

 supposed enemy and her young ones. The accompanying photo- 

 graph was taken on the Fame Islands, where large numbers 

 breed, at a spot not difficult of access. The nest is constructed 

 of grasses, and two eggs are usually laid. In some of the large 

 black caves on the shores of the western islands of Scotland we 

 find large flocks of Kittiwakes nesting. From a short distance, 

 one would almost think that some of the birds had actually built 

 their nests on the roof. They are certainly above us, but on 

 a closer inspection we notice that small jutting pieces of rock, 

 forming shelves, are the supports on which the nests are built. 



These caves are weird, dark, damp places ; others on the 

 contrary might be some beautiful fairy palace, overhung with 

 mantles of the most brilliant green, red, brown, and yellow 

 moss, and with sparkling drops of water for the jewels. The 

 water, too, is a wonderful green, and is as transparent as the 

 clearest crystal, and the white birds flying to and from their 

 nests might well be likened to the fairy inhabitants of these rocky 

 unknown homes, which are ceaselessly washed by the surging, 

 heaving, and never restful sea. Searching for the Kittiwake takes 

 us into some wild places, and one of the grandest that I have 

 seen was on the coast of one of the Orkney Islands, where mile 

 after mile of rugged, rough coast-line, rising from the sea for 

 over one hundred feet, was tenanted by hundreds of thousands 

 of Kittiwakes and Guillemots, and the air was filled with the 

 never-ending cry of kitt-i-wake, kitt-i-wake, and i $h6\ ,- muffled 

 roar of hundreds of Guillemots uttering their strange, -guttural 

 notes. 



Again, on the Bass Rock there are vast numbers nesting, 

 though on the steep black cliffs they are difficult of access. With 

 the aid of two long ropes I was able to get down to them, and 

 secured some good photographs, with the rays of the setting sun 



101 V 



