32 ANNALS OF BIRD LIFE. 



confine themselves to certain districts. For 

 instance, nowhere can the nesting economy of 

 Terns and Gulls be better studied than at the 

 Feme Islands ; in no other locality in the British 

 Islands but St. Kilda can the ornithologist watch 

 Fulmars lay, the Fulmars at their nests in such enormous 

 numbers ; while the Bass Rock must ever be 

 associated with the Gannet, and the cliffs of 

 Flamboro' offer unusual facilities for observing 

 Guillemots Guillemots and Razorbills. On these latter rocks 

 is'thMay*' ever y available ledge is crowded with Guillemots, 

 and the crannies in the cliffs are tenanted by 

 countless Razorbills. Viewed from the sea these 

 brave old cliffs present a wonderful sight. From 

 all parts of the ledges birds are incessantly 

 flying down to the sea ; whilst the face of 

 the rocks is almost hidden in places by the 

 hordes of birds that are passing up and down. 

 But the best place in this country to see the 

 Guillemot at home is on the " Pinnacles," a 

 group of stack-like rocks at the Feme Islands. 

 They are some sixty feet high, and the flat 

 table-like tops are one moving mass of birds, most 

 of them sitting on their solitary egg. When ap- 

 proached by human intruders, the whole mass of 

 birds hurry off, pouring from the edges in streams, 

 helter-skelter into the boiling sea below, leaving 

 the surface of the rock thickly strewn with their 

 beautiful eggs of almost every conceivable hue. 

 In the hurry of departure many eggs get knocked 

 off into the sea. On the ledges of these cliffs 



