COMMON GUILLEMOT. 421 



I recollect climbing with a friend one evening in June to the 

 top of the cliffs to take some notes of the birds generally, and 

 approaching the perpendicular walls of basaltic rock facing the 

 south, on which the Guillemots, razor-bills, solan geese, and 

 kittiwakes were sitting in congregations which could scarcely be 

 over-estimated. There was a party shooting from a boat close to 

 the base of the Craig, and I noticed that the birds on the upper 

 shelves, when disturbed by successive shots, resembled a heavy 

 fall of large snow-flakes, the lower stratum of kittiwakes appearing 

 from above as a flickering shower of white particles. Having 

 crept cautiously to the verge of the precipice, and thrust my chin 

 over the edge of a pillar my heels being meanwhile held by my 

 companion behind I had a satisfactory view. Looking down 

 about four hundred and fifty feet, I saw that the gulls and other birds 

 floating on wing near the water had no particular form, on account 

 of the distance; but there could be no doubt as to the specific 

 identity of the black imps just under my face. These were young 

 Guillemots and razor-bills the old birds being beside them, 

 anxiously poking out their necks, and looking upwards with an 

 eye of fear that fairly put me out of countenance. It was evident 

 from their expression that they divined nothing good from my 

 head being between them and the sky, and their mingled look of 

 terror and perplexity, on seeing the apparition, conveyed to me 

 anything but a compliment. Under the perch of these odoriferous 

 " children of the mist " other families came in view, lower and 

 still lower, their untidy habits being modified by distance, till the 

 eye lost sight of the species, and sea-fowl in general became 

 responsible for the smell and uproar. 



While on the rock, I learned from the keeper, whose accuracy 

 of observation I have never had any reason to doubt, that when 

 the young Guillemots are half-fledged, he has seen the parent 

 birds daily taking them down on their backs to the sea, and 

 unceremoniously pitching them off when within a few feet of the 

 Welter. He has also observed them seize their young ones by the 

 hind neck, as a cat would do its kittens, and, after a moment's 

 hesitation, launch from their high perches, and descend with an 

 unsteady flutter till they could drop them with safety. At this 

 season I have seen as no doubt every other visitor to Ailsa must 

 have observed great numbers of down-covered Guillemots swim- 

 ming in the sea, and plaintively calling during the submergence of 



