342 BRITISH BIRDS. 



sleeping on the heaving billows with its bill buried in its dorsal plumes. 

 It swims easily and lightly, and often alights on the water to eat its food. 

 The large Gulls often mob the gentle Kittiwake and rob it of its hard- 

 earned prey. 



The food of the Kittiwake consists principally of small fish; it also 

 eats crustaceans, small shell-fish, and other marine animals, and picks up 

 various floating refuse from ships. It is very sharp-sighted, and often 

 pounces down from a considerable height to secure a small fish. The 

 note of the Kittiwake is almost too well known to need description. Like 

 the Cuckoo, this little Gull has received its trivial name from its singular 

 notes, which resemble the syllables kitti-aa, kitti-aa, which the imagination 

 often likens to get away, get away, especially in the neighbourhood of its 

 nest. This note is modulated in various ways, as the birds converse 

 amongst themselves, as it were, on the cliffs. 



The most interesting period of the Kittiwake' s life is when it is engaged 

 in the duties of rearing its young. A Kittiwake-colony is one of the most 

 charming sights a rock-bound coast can afford. Early in spring the birds 

 return to their old nurseries, visiting them almost daily until the work of 

 building or restoring the nests commences. The places this Gull prefers 

 are steep cliffs rocks which fall sheer down to the water on the ledges 

 and shelves of which it places its somewhat well-made nest. If the cliffs 

 are tenanted by other sea-birds the Kittiwakes usually select the lowest 

 parts of the rocks, often making their nests a few feet from the water ; but 

 in other situations where they have the rocks to themselves they utilize 

 every suitable situation. Every year the Kittiwakes return to the old 

 familiar cliffs to rear their broods, and from time immemorial certain rocks 

 have been favoured. These colonies vary considerably in size : sometimes 

 a cliff has only one or two pairs nesting upon it; on others the range of 

 rocks is white with the clustering masses of birds. 



The largest colony of birds which I have ever seen is that at Svcerholt, 

 not far from the North Cape, in Norway, on the cliffs which form the pro- 

 montory between the Porsanger and the Laxe Fjords. It is a stupendous 

 range of cliffs, nearly a thousand feet high, and so crowded with nests that 

 it might easily be supposed that all the Kittiwakes in the world had 

 assembled there to breed. The number of birds has, however, been grossly 

 exaggerated. If we estimate the surface of the cliff covered by the nests at 

 about 640,000 square feet, and allow for each nest a foot in width and two 

 feet and a half in height, we obtain a total of (say) a quarter of a million 

 nests, or half a million breeding birds. Supposing the non-breeding birds 

 to be ten to one, surely a very high estimate, we only reach five and a half 

 million birds. When a recent writer says that " the number of individuals 

 must amount to milliards," or thousands of millions, he is simply talking 

 unmitigated nonsense, and obviously has no conception of what a milliard 



