ALCAD^E. 253 



they lay and unattached, as on the palm of your outstretched 

 hand. You might see nine or ten, or sometimes twelve, 

 old Guillemots in a line, so near to each other that their 

 wings seemed to touch those of their neighbours, and when 

 they flew off at your approach you would see as many eggs 

 as you had counted birds sitting on the ledge. 



' ' The eggs vary in size and shape and colour beyond all 

 belief. Some are large, others small, some exceedingly 

 sharp at one end, and others nearly rotund. Where one is 

 green, streaked and blotched with black, another has a 

 milk-white ground, blotched and streaked with light-brown. 

 Others again present a very pale green-colour without any 

 markings at all; while others are of a somewhat darker 

 green, with streaks and blotches of a remarkably faded 

 brown. In a word, Nature seems to have introduced such 

 an endless intermixture of white, brown, green, yellow, and 

 black into the shells of the eggs of the Guillemots, that it 

 absolutely requires the aid of the well-set palette of a 

 painter to give an adequate idea of their beautifully-blended 

 variety of colouring."* 



Abundant as these birds are upon certain portions of our 

 coast, they appear to be equally so upon some parts of that 



* Waterton's Essays upon Natural History, pp. 153-158. 



