A SEA-BIRD NURSERY 



755 



A CLUSTER OF KITTIWAKES. 



obtain a picture, setting up the camera 

 some six feet from the bird. 



So, too, may he stalk the guillemot : 

 for to the winged poacher the relatively 

 enormous egg is, if anything, a still 

 greater prize. It is intensely interesting 

 to watch these birds from so close a 

 distance that one thinks to read their 

 changing moods in the piercing black 

 eye. No greater contrast to the dainty 

 lover-like kittiwake could well be imagined. 

 Watch them as they sit in rows with 

 white breast turned to the cliff so that 

 their drab-coloured backs may render 

 them less conspicuous to enemies from 

 the sea, craning their snake-like necks 

 this way and that, eyeing you now from 

 one side now from the other, curious 

 of their neighbours' affairs, anxious yet 

 reluclant to go, and \'ou will begin to 

 recast your ideas on the |)()ssil)ilities of 

 bird anatomy and perpetual motion 



The one fixed point is where the body 

 touches the egg, for the female plucks 

 a patch bare of feathers between the 

 thighs so as to bring the greatest heat 

 to bear on incubation, and sits astraddle 

 with the egg between her feet. The egg 

 is deep blue, cream or even white in 

 ground colour, blotched, streaked or 

 scribbled over with bold black markings. 

 No two are alike, but all are pear-shaped 

 — a provision which causes them to roll 

 in a circle when set in motion, though 

 often the ledges are not sufficiently wide 

 to admit of this manoeuvre. Numbers 

 are destroyed by sudden gusts of wind, 

 and yet more are literally kicked off by 

 the birds themselves when, suddenly 

 alarmed, they attempt to leave in a 

 hurry, and break with a sickening iiollow 

 squelch on the rocks perhaps two hundred 

 feet below. 



The guillemot is re[)uted to be a some- 



