Birds by Land and Sea 



where I was standing, but failed to find the nest. I 

 returned to the camera, and whilst following the 

 birds with my head under the focussing cloth, I 

 kept hearing, as I thought, a small squeak respond 

 to the powerful piping of the old birds. To cut a 

 long matter short, I at last found three chipped eggs 

 in a fissure at the edge of the rock where I was 

 standing, walled up by projecting slabs of rock, so as 

 to be invisible save to one standing immediately 

 over the nest. Here again nature had furnished 

 the oyster-catcher with a ready-made nest, and the 

 bird had added nothing to it. Upon examining 

 the eggs, I found the tips of the large bills of two of 

 the enclosed chicks protruding through slits in the 

 lining membranes of the eggs. These two chicks 

 were piping lustily their ante-natal song, responding 

 to the cries of the mother whom as yet they had 

 never seen. The third egg was only just chipped, 

 and there was but a minute slit in the inner lining. 

 Nevertheless, the enclosed chick also called from 

 time to time in a small far-away voice. As the eggs 

 when in the nest were too deeply in shadow for me 

 to obtain a photograph, I set them out on the grass 

 in such a position as to show the openings in the 

 shells and the projecting bills. 



Between the Black Rocks and Dinmor Rocks is a 

 hollow where the limestone has at some time been 

 quarried, and the loose stone has been flung up in 

 heaps in the hollow, one of the heaps having a flat 

 top. Here, with stones forming a low wall on three 



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