54 HAPPY HUNTING-GROUNDS 



Their egg is more oval and less pointed than that of 

 the green plover ; the yoke is redder and the white 

 less transparent and the flavour somewhat stronger, 

 but they are excellent food, as I can testify from 

 experience. Other rock-building gulls whiten the 

 cliffs with their numbers, building there with cormo- 

 rants, guillemots, razor-bills, and land birds ; but the 

 society is not mixed, each species keeps to its own 

 ledge, and forms a separate community.! The solan 

 geese nest elsewhere, perhaps on the Bass Rock or 

 Ailsa Craig. A journey of a hundred miles or so after 

 the herring-shoals is a mere nothing for these strong- 

 winged birds, and they can often be seen fishing off 

 the shore, dropping like plummets with unerring aim 

 upon their prey ; not pursuing the fish under water as 

 do the divers and cormorants, but spying them from 

 on high, and only going so far below the surface as the 

 impetus of their flight carries them. 



Puffins were not common, but an occasional one 

 could be seen among the guillemots, conspicuous 

 for its brilliant parrot-shaped beak. Guillemots, 

 both of the common and black varieties, abounded ; 

 razor-bills were also to be found, and great numbers of 

 the two common sorts of cormorants. The water-hen, 

 dabchick and coot, as well as the common merganser, 

 were to be found on the burns and inland lakes ; and 

 the retiring water-rail was occasionally flushed from 

 the reed beds. The Arctic and common tern pursued 

 the fry in myriads, and nested on the low rocks and 

 the shingle. I have no doubt that other varieties 

 of terms might also have been identified, but as in 

 the case of the small waders my eyes are no longer 

 good enough to distinguish minor differences with 



