Along the Rock-bound Coast 



ever, we frequently saw small parties of these 

 birds sitting on the water in company with Guille- 

 mots, Razorbills and Gulls, apparently where fish 

 attracted them ; others raced along the hollows 

 between the waves as if their wings could never 

 tire. It is at dusk, however, that they become most 

 active, issuing from their nesting burrows and 

 behaving, as far as one could judge, after the 

 manner of Swifts, except that their cries were 

 inexpressibly more weird, and on foggy nights 

 they were unusually noisy. At one moment we 

 heard them just above our heads, at the next 

 the cry seemed to come to us from a quarter of a 

 mile away, " Kok, kok, kok-a-kow, kok-a-kow, 

 kok-kok." 



Their nesting burrows were situated just under 

 the brow of some loose-faced cliffs, and, in some 

 cases at least, had an exit at the top. About three 

 or four feet down was a chamber excavated by the 

 bird, and the nest itself was nothing but a few 

 scraps of dry bracken. Some of the holes that 

 we examined contained a smooth white egg, 

 others a young bird resembling a young Puffin, 

 except for a curious tuft on the head, but in 

 every case we found the parent bird at home, and 

 they required careful handling as some scars on 

 our hands testified for many a day. The colouring, 

 black above and white below, with transverse bars 

 of grey and white at the sides of the neck, though 

 not striking in itself, gave a beautifully sleek and 



